Animal Body Size

“Although the contributors are numerous and the topic large, several threads running through this collection make it strongly cohesive. . . . Animal Body Size provides a landmark, or point of reference, in the progress toward understanding body size, its implications, and its consequences.”

“It is not a comprehensive discussion of body size in animals but rather—as suggested by the title after the colon—focuses on why animals are the sizes that they are based on a comparative macroecological perspective. . . . The editors’ own chapter on size in mammals through space and time is an important contribution to the field. . . . Animal Body Size includes a range of papers that would likely be of interest to ecologists, paleontologists, and conservation biologists.”

“A good introduction to macroecology for newly entering students. . . . The editors . . . proactively direct the readers toward the way forward.”

“This diverse collection provides a fascinating glimpse into a fundamental property of animal communities: the distribution of body sizes. With a stimulating integration of ecology and paleobiology that addresses the interplay of structure, function, the environment, and evolutionary history, this compilation is sure to appeal to a broad readership. By bringing to the forefront a suite of unanswered questions, the contributors’ efforts will motivate exciting new research into how communities are structured across space and through time.”

“Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, and a cadre of leaders and pioneers in their field present a comprehensive yet imminently accessible synthesis that successfully argues that size matters in more ways than we could have possibly imagined.”

“Animal Body Size presents macroecological patterns in body size distributions for vertebrates and invertebrates and evaluations of ecological and evolutionary processes that shape body size distributions of clades and communities. Contributors emphasize patterns and processes at different taxonomic and spatial scales. Recurrent themes include life history analysis, metabolic scaling, allometry, ecogeographic and evolutionary trends in body size, ecological interactions, and biogeography. The strengths of this book lie in its broad vision of body size research, the intertwined ecological and evolutionary perspectives, and excellent bibliographies. The book will be useful as both a reference and a stimulus to new avenues of research.”