Ontogenetic and interspecific scaling of consumption in insects

Abstract

The uptake of resources from the environment is a basic feature of all life. Consumption rate has been found to scale with body size with an exponent close to unity across diverse organisms. However, past analyses have ignored the important distinction between ontogenetic and interspecific size comparisons. Using principles of dynamic energy budget theory, we present a mechanistic model for the body mass scaling of consumption, which separates interspecific size effects from ontogenetic size effects. Our model predicts uptake to scale with surface-area (mass2/3) during ontogenetic growth but more quickly (between mass3/4 and mass1) for interspecific comparisons. Available data for 41 insect ..