A synthesis of metabolic theory of ecology: Toward an integration of allometric scaling and ecological stoichiometry

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The rate of metabolism which is a fundamental biochemical reaction shared among all organisms scales with the power function of their body mass. Focusing on this size-scaling law, we aimed at constructing a conceptual framework of “ecosystem metabolism” to formulate a relationship between size structure and ecosystem-level metabolism of biological communities. We examined what determines the ecosystem metabolism of plankton communities in resource-controlled lake mesocosms. Our experimental results did not support the prediction deduced from the size-scaling law in that mass-specific ecosystem metabolism would be higher in communities with smaller-sized plankton. Instead, wefound that plankton stoichiometry (i.e., C:N:P) was the most influential factor for the ecosystem metabolism. We suggest that the availability of least nutrients can limit the rate of transferring metabolites to all member of community under trophic interactions, consequently regulating the metabolic rate of whole community. To understand controlling mechanisms for ecosystem metabolism, we emphasize the importance of synthetic model in which ecological stoichiometry as well as allometric scaling is integrated into the metabolic theory.