Energetic constraints on the diet of terrestrial carnivores
Energetic constraints on the diet of terrestrial carnivores
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DOI：
10.1038/46266
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发表时间：
1999-11-18
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Macdonald, DW
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Carbone, C;Mace, GM;Macdonald, DW
哺乳动物食肉目的物种表现出巨大的多样性的生活史与身体大小跨越超过三个数量级。尽管有这种多样性，但大多数陆生食肉动物可以分为以无脊椎动物和小型脊椎动物或大型脊椎动物为食。小型食肉动物主要以无脊椎动物为食，可能是因为它们是一种过剩的资源（有时占动物生物量的90%（1-3））;然而，无脊椎动物的摄食率很低，约为脊椎动物摄食率的十分之一（4，5）。虽然小型食肉动物可以在这种饮食中生存，因为低的绝对能量需求，无脊椎动物喂养似乎是不可持续的大型食肉动物。在这里，我们表明，通过审查最常见的活猎物在食肉动物的饮食，有一个惊人的过渡，从小猎物（不到一半的捕食者质量），以大型猎物（接近捕食者质量），发生在捕食者质量21.5- 25公斤。我们测试的假设，这种二分法是质量相关的能量需求的后果，我们确定预测的最大质量，无脊椎动物的饮食可以维持。使用一个简单的充满活力的模型和已知的无脊椎动物的摄入率，我们预测的最大可持续质量为21.5公斤，这与捕食者从小到大猎物转变的点相匹配。
Species in the mammalian order Carnivora exhibit a huge diversity of life histories with body sizes spanning more than three orders of magnitude. Despite this diversity, most terrestrial carnivores can be classified as either feeding on invertebrates and small vertebrates or on large vertebrates. Small carnivores feed predominantly on invertebrates probably because they are a superabundant: resource (sometimes 90% of animal biomass(1-3)); however, intake rates of invertebrate feeders are low, about one tenth of those of vertebrate feeders(4,5). Although small carnivores can subsist on this diet because of low absolute energy requirements, invertebrate feeding appears to be unsustainable for larger carnivores. Here we show, by reviewing the most common live prey in carnivore diets, that there is a striking transition from feeding on small prey (less than half of predator mass) to large prey (near predator mass), occurring at predator masses of 21.5-25kg. We test the hypothesis that this dichotomy is the consequence of mass-related energetic requirements and we determine the predicted maximum mass that an invertebrate diet can sustain. Using a simple energetic model and known invertebrate intake rates, we predict a maximum sustainable mass of 21.5 kg, which matches the point where predators shift from small to large prey.