ArticleScientific reports2017
Extra-metabolic energy use and the rise in human hyper-density.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Three centuries of technological innovation: Opportunity is the mother of invention.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Scaling COVID-19 rates with population size in the United States.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
- How greedy is too greedy? A network toy model for evaluating the sustainability of biased evolutionary dynamics.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Drivers of urban biodiversity in Mexico and joint risks from future urban expansion, climate change, and urban heat island effect.PloS one · 2024Article
- The coming perfect storm: Diminishing sustainability of coastal human-natural systems in the Anthropocene.Cambridge prisms. Coastal futures · 2023Review
- City-scale energetics: window on adaptive thermal insulation in North American cities.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2022Article
- Diversity begets diversity in mammal species and human cultures.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Hunter-gatherer populations inform modern ecology.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Productivity, biodiversity, and pathogens influence the global hunter-gatherer population density.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Innovation and the growth of human population.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Humans, like all organisms, are subject to fundamental biophysical laws. Van Valen predicted that, because of zero-sum dynamics, all populations of all species in a given environment flux the same amount of energy on average. Damuth's 'energetic equivalence rule' supported Van Valen´s conjecture by showing a tradeoff between few big animals per area with high individual metabolic rates compared to abundant small species with low energy requirements. We use metabolic scaling theory to compare variation in densities and individual energy use in human societies to other land mammals. We show that hunter-gatherers occurred at densities lower than the average for a mammal of our size. Most modern humans, in contrast, concentrate in large cities at densities up to four orders of magnitude greater than hunter-gatherers, yet consume up to two orders of magnitude more energy per capita. Today, cities across the globe flux greater energy than net primary productivity on a per area basis. This is possible by importing enormous amounts of energy and materials required to sustain hyper-dense, modern humans. The metabolic rift with nature created by modern cities fueled largely by fossil energy poses formidable challenges for establishing a sustainable relationship on a rapidly urbanizing, yet finite planet.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.