Taylor's law on abundance unravels the role of traits and environmental conditions on population dynamics.

Abstract

The variance-mean scaling in population abundance or Taylor's power law (TPL) has been reported hundreds of times and is related to ecological processes such as competition, dispersal or territoriality. In this sense, the TPL was extensively validated to resume population variability and to show the action of ecological mechanisms. Baumgartner and Peláez (2024) combine databases of fish dynamics along the United States, species traits, species phylogeny and climatic conditions, estimating the TPL for 180 species along 972 populations. The observed scaling suggests that the variability of the population decreases with abundance. Notably, 68% of the variation in the variance-mean scaling was explained by species traits and environmental conditions. Specifically, the life history of the species, associated with its body size, was the main explanation for the TPL, also reporting that the variability of the population increased faster with mean abundance in the headwaters than in other river sections. Equally important, the diversity of the community in which the species were inserted did not affect the scaling. These results provide overwhelming evidence on the nature of TPL on large geographic scales and how they are affected by species biology and environmental conditions. A contribution that should motivate further empirical and theoretical analysis of the TPL and its determinants.