Fractal geometry predicts varying body size scaling relationships for mammal and bird home ranges
Open accessAbstract
Scaling laws that describe complex interactions between organisms and their environment as a function of body size offer exciting potential for synthesis in biology. Home range size, or the area used by individual organisms, is a critical ecological variable that integrates behaviour, physiology and population density and strongly depends on organism size. Here we present a new model of home range-body size scaling based on fractal resource distributions, in which resource encounter rates are a function of body size. The model predicts no universally constant scaling exponent for home range, but defines a possible range of values set by geometric limits to resource density and distribution. The model unifies apparently conflicting earlier results and explains differences in scaling exponents among herbivorous and carnivorous mammals and birds. We apply the model to predict that home range increases with habitat fragmentation, and that the home ranges of larger species should be much more sensitive to habitat fragmentation than those of smaller species.
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It is unlikely that the positive relationship between brain mass residuals and BMR residuals is an artefact of confounding variables correlated with BMR, such as home range size.
“It is possible, but unlikely.”
From Metabolic costs of brain size evolution (2006) · cites this paper as Haskell et al. 2002
The paper discusses how home range scales with body size and metabolic requirements (p. 2), but it does not address brain-mass or BMR residuals. Its discussion of factors affecting home-range scaling (p. 4) does not assess whether home range confounds a relationship between those residuals. Searches for brain-mass residuals, BMR and confounding found no such analysis in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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References 36 · Cited by 354
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [30]Brown, J. H. in Experimental Ecology (eds Resetarits, W. J. Jr & Bernardo, J.) 71-95 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1998).
- Authors
- Haskell, J. P., Ritchie, M. E., & Olff, H.
- Affiliations
- Utah State University (US)
- Syracuse University (US)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Haskell, John P.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2002-08
- Volume
- 418
- Issue
- 6897
- Pages
- 527-530
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2147908439
- Cited by
- 354
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 19
- FWCI
- 18.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- research.wur.nl
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Physiological and biochemical adaptations
- Keywords
- home range size, body size scaling, scaling exponents, habitat fragmentation, resource density
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Birds, Body Constitution, Environment, Homing Behavior, Mammals, Models, Biological, Population Density, Fractals, Animal Migration
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