A large body of research dating back to the 19th century has shown evidence for consistent relationships between ecological variables across geographical space (Lomolino et al., 2006; Gaston et al., 2008). These so-called ecogeographical ‘rules’ are often observed both within and among species and across lineages. Here we focus on three of the most familiar Department of Biology, University of ...

background: general practitioners are the first who visit burn patients and they first calculate burn size and required fluid for the patient. error in calculation can be disastrous. the purpose of this study is to compare four methods of estimating burn size to teach students. methods: this is a descriptive-analytic study on 37 medical students. four methods of estimating burn percentage was t...

In bird species where males incubate but are smaller than females, egg size may be constrained by male body size, and hence ability to incubate the eggs. Using data from 71 such shorebird species, we show that egg size decreases as the degree of female-biased sexual size dimorphism increases, after controlling for female body mass. Relative egg size was not related to mean clutch size. However,...

The field metabolic rates (FMRs) of 229 species of terrestrial vertebrates, all measured using the doubly labeled water method in free-living individuals, were evaluated. Daily rates of energy expenditure were as low as 0.23 kJ per day in a small reptile (gecko), to as high as 52 500 kJ per day in a marine mammal (seal). This is a range of nearly six orders of magnitude. More than 70% of the va...

Differences in body sizes may create a trade-off between foraging efficiency (foraging gains/costs) and access to resources. Such a trade-off provides a potential mechanism for ecologically similar species to coexist on one resource. We explored this hypothesis for tundra (Cygnus columbianus) and trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator), a federally protected species, feeding solely on sago pondweed...

Bigger animals live longer. The scaling exponent for the relationship between lifespan and body mass is between 0.15 and 0.3. Bigger animals also expend more energy, and the scaling exponent for the relationship of resting metabolic rate (RMR) to body mass lies somewhere between 0.66 and 0.8. Mass-specific RMR therefore scales with a corresponding exponent between -0.2 and -0.33. Because the ex...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Studies on the association between head circumference (HC) and height or weight have shown variable results. METHODS Using data from the Dutch nationwide survey performed in 1997 (n = 14,500), we calculated correlations for different ages, and fitted a regression model for the estimation of HC. HC versus height charts were created for different age groups. Data from children f...

Body size of animals often increases with increasing latitude. These latitudinal clines in body size have interested biologists for over 150 years. However, the mechanisms that generate these clines in size are still unclear, though latitudinal gradients in temperature appear to play an important role. More importantly, many studies that examine latitudinal clines in body size and the mechanism...

The increased temperature associated with climate change may have important effects on body size and predator-prey interactions. The consequences of these effects for food web structure are unclear because the relationships between temperature and aspects of food web structure such as predator-prey body-size relationships are unknown. Here, we use the largest reported dataset for marine predato...