Problems with assumptions in macroecology

/ gtattersall

Thanks to some very kind and smart colleagues, we have an editorial published in Ecology and Evolution!

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.5721

Here is the citation:

Justin G. Boyles, Danielle L. Levesque, Julia Nowack, Michał S. Wojciechowski, Clare Stawski, Andrea Fuller, Ben Smit, and Glenn J. Tattersall 2019. An oversimplification of physiological principles leads to flawed macroecological analyses. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5721

Take home message? Few endotherms are homeothermic, so they do not conform to assumptions of the Scholander-Irving model. Taking predictions from the SI model based on a broad range of lab studies can lead to huge errors in predictions. A re-assessment of macroecological predictions using this approach is warranted.

Demonstration of the inherent limitations of using body temperature (Tb) and the lower critical temperature (Tlc) of the thermal neutral zone to calculate thermal conductance (C) when Tb and Tlc are poorly defined.