Publication
Title
Body-size shifts in aquatic and terrestrial urban communities
Author
Abstract
Body size is intrinsically linked to metabolic rate and life-history traits, and is a crucial determinant of food webs and community dynamics(1,2). The increased temperatures associated with the urban-heat-island effect result in increased metabolic costs and are expected to drive shifts to smaller body sizes'. Urban environments are, however, also characterized by substantial habitat fragmentation', which favours mobile species. Here, using a replicated, spatially nested sampling design across ten animal taxonomic groups, we show that urban communities generally consist of smaller species. In addition, although we show urban warming for three habitat types and associated reduced community-weighted mean body sizes for four taxa, three taxa display a shift to larger species along the urbanization gradients. Our results show that the general trend towards smaller-sized species is overruled by filtering for larger species when there is positive covariation between size and dispersal, a process that can mitigate the low connectivity of ecological resources in urban settings(5). We thus demonstrate that the urban-heat-island effect and urban habitat fragmentation are associated with contrasting community-level shifts in body size that critically depend on the association between body size and dispersal. Because body size determines the structure and dynamics of ecological networks(1), such shifts may affect urban ecosystem function.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Nature. - London, 1869, currens
Publication
London : MacMillan , 2018
ISSN
0028-0836 [print]
1476-4687 [online]
DOI
10.1038/S41586-018-0140-0
Volume/pages
558 :7708 (2018) , p. 113-116
ISI
000434273300047
Pubmed ID
29795350
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Spatial and environmental determinants of eco-evolutionary dynamics: anthropogenic environments as a model (SPEEDY).
Global Ecosystem Functioning and Interactions with Global Change.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 10.07.2018
Last edited 09.10.2023
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