Description
Book SynopsisLarger animals eat more, live longer, have larger offspring, but these commonplace observations are rarely seen as a basis for scientific biology. Empirically-based relationships describe body functions as simple functions of body size but these relations have never been organised for use in ecology. This book presents the largest single compilation of interspecific size relations.
Trade Review' … [Peters] has built a brief and engaging quantitative monograph, frank, learned, painstaking and made explicitly helpful to readers with little mathematical experience … His text is an unequaled review of the field …' Scientific American
' … Here is a treasure house of information … Clearly this is an important book. It is different - and by ignoring cherished disciplines, by blending physiology and ecology, and by looking at problems with a fresh eye, Peters yields new insights and opens up new questions.' Nature
'Peters has produced both a useful introduction to the relationships of body size to several physiological, ecological, and biomechanical processes as well as a source of data on these matters … Peter's approach is effective, and this small volume could be used in graduate seminars as well as in advanced undergraduate courses in ecology and related subjects.' Choice
Table of ContentsPreface; 1. A philosophical introduction; 2. A mathematical primer: logarithms, power curves, and correlations; 3. Metabolism; 4. Physiological correlates of size; 5. Temperature and metabolic rate; 6. Locomotion; 7. Ingestion; 8. Production: growth and reproduction; 9. Mass flow; 10. Animal abundance; 11. Other allometric relations; 12. Allometric simulation models; 13. Explanations; 14. Prospectus; Appendixes; References; Index.
