The DOI matches its Crossref record; 16 of the 16 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Bergmann's rule is invalid
Abstract
Bergmann's rule, claiming that in homeotherms body size increases inversely with temperature so that, intraspecifically, body size increases latitudinally, is not valid, nor is the explanation of this rule. In large mammals body size at first increases with latitude, but then reverses between 53 and 65° N, so that small body sizes occur at the lowest and highest latitudes. This is predicted by the hypothesis that body size follows the duration of the annual productivity pulse, so that body size is a function of availability of nutrients and energy during periods of growth. Correlations between body size and temperature are shown to be spurious. If reduction in relative surface area is indeed an adaptation to conserve heat, then mammals should increase in size from south to north at rates two orders of magnitude greater than they do. Bergmann's rule has no basis in fact or theory.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Brody, S., & Lardy, H. A. (1946) · The Journal of Physical Chemistry · doi:10.1021/j150446a008 · Cited by 3,459
The Material Basis of Evolution
(1915) · Nature · doi:10.1038/095550b0 · Cited by 802
On Certain Unifying Principles in Ecology
Margalef, R. (1963) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/282286 · Cited by 795
On the Ecological Significance of Bergmann's Rule
McNab, B. K. (1971) · Ecology · doi:10.2307/1936032 · Cited by 634
Seasonality, Fasting Endurance, and Body Size in Mammals
Lindstedt, S. L., & Boyce, M. S. (1985) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/284385 · Cited by 577
EVOLUTION OF CLIMATIC ADAPTATION IN HOMEOTHERMS
Scholander, P. F. (1955) · Evolution · doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.1955.tb01510.x · Cited by 429
Roberts, D. F. (1953) · American Journal of Physical Anthropology · doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330110404 · Cited by 304
A revision of the reindeer and caribou genus Rangifer
Banfield, A. W. F. (1961) · Cited by 218
Storer, T. I., Young, S. P., & Goldman, E. A. (1945) · The Journal of Wildlife Management · doi:10.2307/3795954 · Cited by 190
The Application of Ecological Rules to the Racial Anthropology of the Aboriginal New World*
Newman, M. T. (1953) · American Anthropologist · doi:10.1525/aa.1953.55.3.02a00020 · Cited by 136
Cited by
Is Bergmann’s Rule Valid for Mammals?
Ashton, K. G., Tracy, M. C., & Queiroz, A. D. (2000) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/303400 · Cited by 678
Hersteinsson, P., & MacDonald, D. W. (1992) · Oikos · doi:10.2307/3545168 · Cited by 370
Ghoreishifar, S. M., Eriksson, S., Johansson, A. M., Khansefid, M., Moghaddaszadeh-Ahrabi, S., Parna, N., Davoudi, P., & Javanmard, A. (2020) · Genetics Selection Evolution · doi:10.1186/s12711-020-00571-5 · Cited by 126
Bioenergetic perspectives on Neanderthal thermoregulatory and activity budgets
Churchill, S. E. (2006) · Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology · doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-5121-0_7 · Cited by 106
Livezey, B. C. (2003) · Ornithological Monographs · doi:10.2307/40168337 · Cited by 81
Metadata
- Authors
- Geist, V.
- Venue
- Canadian Journal of Zoology
- Publisher
- Canadian Science Publishing
- Published
- 1987-04-01
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1035-1038
- ISSN
- 0008-4301 (ISSN-L)
- 1480-3283
- OpenAlex
- W2103367403
- Cited by
- 384
- References
- 16
- FWCI
- 2.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Bergmann's rule is invalid. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1139/z87-164
- The paper
- Geist, V. (1987). Bergmann's rule is invalid. Canadian Journal of Zoology. https://doi.org/10.1139/z87-164
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
