Abstract
The ecological implications of body size extend from the biology of individual organisms to ecosystem‐level processes. Measuring body mass for high numbers of invertebrates can be logistically challenging, making length–mass regressions useful for predicting body mass with minimal effort. However, standardized sets of scaling relationships covering a large range in body length, taxonomic groups, and multiple geographical regions are scarce. We collected 6,212 arthropods from 19 higher‐level taxa in both temperate and tropical locations to compile a comprehensive set of linear models relating live body mass to a range of predictor variables. We measured live weight (hereafter, body mass), body length and width of each individual and conducted linear regressions to predict body mass using body length, body width, taxonomic group, and geographic region. Additionally, we quantified prediction discrepancy when using parameters from arthropods of a different geographic region. Incorporating body width into taxon‐ and region‐specific length–mass regressions yielded the highest prediction accuracy for body mass. Using regression parameters from a different geographic region increased prediction discrepancy, causing over‐ or underestimation of body mass depending on geographical origin and whether body width was included. We present a comprehensive range of parameters for predicting arthropod body mass and provide guidance for selecting optimal scaling relationships. Given the importance of body mass for functional invertebrate ecology and the paucity of adequate regressions to predict arthropod body mass from different geographical regions, our study provides a long‐needed resource for quantifying live body mass in invertebrate ecology research.
Highlights
Body size is one of the most fundamental traits of living organisms (Peters, 1983)
We provide an unprecedented dataset of length– mass scaling relationships based on measurements of live body mass and body length of 6,212 terrestrial arthropods from both tropical and temperate geographical regions
Our study provides a generalized resource for predicting live body mass across an unprecedented range of terres‐ trial arthropod groups, as well as guidance for deciding which scal‐ ing relationships to use for predicting arthropod body mass depend‐ ing on the dataset at hand
Summary
Body size is one of the most fundamental traits of living organisms (Peters, 1983). From the individual to the community level, a vast range of properties scale with body size. These include quan‐ titative magnetic resonance (O’Regan, Guglielmo, & Taylor, 2012), clay‐modeling, image analysis or geometric approximation (Llopis‐ Belenguer, Blasco‐Costa, & Balbuena, 2018) While these are pow‐ erful methods for low sample sizes, obtaining individual body masses for high abundance samples with organisms from many taxonomic groups is infeasible and is where length–mass regressions provide an optimal alternative. Considering the broad application of live body size data in ecological research, there are surprisingly few studies that provide length–body mass regression parameters for terrestrial arthropods, and most studies are restricted to one of either temper‐ ate or tropical animals, or to only a few taxonomic groups (Benke et al, 1999; Burgherr & Meyer, 1997; Gruner, 2003; Mercer et al, 2001; Schoener, 1980; Wardhaugh, 2013). Our study provides a generalized resource for predicting live body mass across an unprecedented range of terres‐ trial arthropod groups (including 19 orders of Arachnida, Myriapoda, Crustacea, and Insecta), as well as guidance for deciding which scal‐ ing relationships to use for predicting arthropod body mass depend‐ ing on the dataset at hand
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