How does lake primary production scale with lake size?
Kleiber’s 3/4-scaling law for metabolism with mass is one of the most striking regularities in biological sciences. Kleiber’s law has been shown to apply not only to individual organisms but also to communities and even the whole-ecosystem properties such as the productivity of estuaries. Might Klei...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2023-02-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Environmental Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1103068/full |
| _version_ | 1797902098104320000 |
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| author | B. B. Cael David A. Seekell David A. Seekell |
| author_facet | B. B. Cael David A. Seekell David A. Seekell |
| author_sort | B. B. Cael |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Kleiber’s 3/4-scaling law for metabolism with mass is one of the most striking regularities in biological sciences. Kleiber’s law has been shown to apply not only to individual organisms but also to communities and even the whole-ecosystem properties such as the productivity of estuaries. Might Kleiber’s law also then apply to lake ecosystems? Here, we show that for a collection of whole-lake primary production measurements, production scales to the 3/4 power of lake volume, consistent with Kleiber’s law. However, this relationship is not explicable by analogy to theories developed for individual organisms. Instead, we argue that dimensional analysis offers a simple explanation. After accounting for latitudinal gradients in temperature and insolation, whole-lake primary production scales isometrically with lake area. Because Earth’s topography is self-affine, meaning there are global-scale differences between vertical and horizontal scaling of topography, lake volume scales super-linearly with lake surface area. 3/4 scaling for primary production by volume then results from these other two scaling relationships. The identified relationship between the primary production and temperature- and insolation-adjusted area may be useful for constraining lakes’ global annual productivity and photosynthetic efficiency. More generally, this suggests that there are multiple paths to realizing the 3/4 scaling of metabolism rather than a single unifying law, at least when comparing across levels of biological organization. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T09:12:25Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b12df6fd13754d81aa2497921ffba39d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-665X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T09:12:25Z |
| publishDate | 2023-02-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Environmental Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-b12df6fd13754d81aa2497921ffba39d2023-02-21T04:46:50ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Environmental Science2296-665X2023-02-011110.3389/fenvs.2023.11030681103068How does lake primary production scale with lake size?B. B. Cael0David A. Seekell1David A. Seekell2National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, United KingdomDepartment of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umea University, Umea, SwedenClimate Impacts Research Centre, Umea University, Abisko, SwedenKleiber’s 3/4-scaling law for metabolism with mass is one of the most striking regularities in biological sciences. Kleiber’s law has been shown to apply not only to individual organisms but also to communities and even the whole-ecosystem properties such as the productivity of estuaries. Might Kleiber’s law also then apply to lake ecosystems? Here, we show that for a collection of whole-lake primary production measurements, production scales to the 3/4 power of lake volume, consistent with Kleiber’s law. However, this relationship is not explicable by analogy to theories developed for individual organisms. Instead, we argue that dimensional analysis offers a simple explanation. After accounting for latitudinal gradients in temperature and insolation, whole-lake primary production scales isometrically with lake area. Because Earth’s topography is self-affine, meaning there are global-scale differences between vertical and horizontal scaling of topography, lake volume scales super-linearly with lake surface area. 3/4 scaling for primary production by volume then results from these other two scaling relationships. The identified relationship between the primary production and temperature- and insolation-adjusted area may be useful for constraining lakes’ global annual productivity and photosynthetic efficiency. More generally, this suggests that there are multiple paths to realizing the 3/4 scaling of metabolism rather than a single unifying law, at least when comparing across levels of biological organization.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1103068/fullgross primary productionallometric scalingmetabolic theoryKleiber’s lawglobal limnology |
| spellingShingle | B. B. Cael David A. Seekell David A. Seekell How does lake primary production scale with lake size? Frontiers in Environmental Science gross primary production allometric scaling metabolic theory Kleiber’s law global limnology |
| title | How does lake primary production scale with lake size? |
| title_full | How does lake primary production scale with lake size? |
| title_fullStr | How does lake primary production scale with lake size? |
| title_full_unstemmed | How does lake primary production scale with lake size? |
| title_short | How does lake primary production scale with lake size? |
| title_sort | how does lake primary production scale with lake size |
| topic | gross primary production allometric scaling metabolic theory Kleiber’s law global limnology |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1103068/full |
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