There is some evidence for vertebrates (as I recall it is from some of the Hubbard Brook work led by Gene Likens but I don't have the reference) that in New England forests, salamanders represented the greatest terrestrial vertebrate biomass per hectare. Salamanders (mainly plethodontidae and ambystomatidae, with one salamandrid) would include most of the smallest vertebrates in the system.
William J. Resetarits Program Director Population and Community Ecology Cluster Division of Environmental Biology National Science Foundation 4201 Wilson Blvd., Suite 635 [email protected] Voice (703) 292-7184 Fax (703) 292-9064 -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news on behalf of James St Clair Sent: Wed 5/12/2010 6:17 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ECOLOG-L] contribution to biomass ~ body size Dear All, I'm working on the impacts of invasive predators that prey preferentially on large-bodied native species. I am wondering about impacts on biomass, and whether anyone knows of studies that quantify the contribution to biomass made by terrestrial invertebrates of different size-classes? Clearly, large-bodied invertebrates are less abundant, but how does this affect their contribution to total biomass in an ecosystem? If you take the ten largest-bodied terrestrial invertebrate species out of a system, how will this affect biomass compared to removing the ten smallest-bodied? I can't find any papers that graph biomass against size-class in any natural system, and I'd be really grateful if anyone knows of such work! Thanks in advance, James -- James St Clair, University of Bath, Room 1.07, 4 South, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY Office: 01225385437 Mobile: 07981826660 Web: http://www.bath.ac.uk/bio-sci/biodiversity-lab/stclair.html
