Pawar et al. reply

Abstract

replying to H. C. Giacomini, B. Shuter, D. T. de Kerckhove & P. A. Abrams , 10.1038/nature11829 (2012) Current studies assume that per-capita consumption rates always scale with body mass to an exponent of 0.75. We showed that, contrary to this assumption, consumption rates scale sublinearly (exponent of approximately 0.85) when organisms forage in two dimensions (2D), and superlinearly (exponent of approximately 1.06) when they forage in 3D1. Giacomini argue that the superlinear scaling in 3D interactions we observed cannot be reconciled with life-history theory for maximal body size2. Consequently, they search for biases in our study that might cause this superlinear scaling. However, their comments do not challenge our central result that consumption rates scale superlinearly in 3D, and significantly more steeply than in 2D. We propose instead that life-history theory may need revision to include interaction dimensionality.