Post by account_disabled on Oct 26, 2023 1:07:29 GMT -8
The study of patterns of body size variation in animal lineages represents one of the main modern objectives in areas such as biogeography and macroecology. The assessment of broad sets of spatial, temporal and diversity data allows us to test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses regarding body size variation.
One of them is Bergmann's Rule, a positive correlation between the average body size of endothermic species and latitudinal distribution (an indicator of climate). According to this rule, larger sizes seem to be distributed more frequently in regions of high latitudes (cold climate), for several groups analyzed europe mobile number list in different parts of the world. The idea of this work was to test this hypothesis using size data from 167 species of chiropterans (bats) distributed in Brazilian territory (micro-chiropterans). Data were collected from the literature. The relationships between wingspan (cm) and weight (gr) were analyzed separately for all species. The results did not demonstrate a significant association between size and climate, globally, for the micro-chiropteran species analyzed, that is, the larger species are not significantly distributed more in the southern region of the country.
Tropical chiropteran species appear to respond more directly to local ecological patterns, such as the selective pressures associated with each population. Another possibility is that energetic-functional relationships in bats may be biased by wing morphological variation. Probably, the geometric bias in the morphology of flying animals implies a different morphophysiology for body size. Keywords: Biogeographic Patterns, Chiroptera, Bergmann Rule. 1. INTRODUCTION The investigation of spatial patterns in vertebrate body size has increased in recent decades.
One of them is Bergmann's Rule, a positive correlation between the average body size of endothermic species and latitudinal distribution (an indicator of climate). According to this rule, larger sizes seem to be distributed more frequently in regions of high latitudes (cold climate), for several groups analyzed europe mobile number list in different parts of the world. The idea of this work was to test this hypothesis using size data from 167 species of chiropterans (bats) distributed in Brazilian territory (micro-chiropterans). Data were collected from the literature. The relationships between wingspan (cm) and weight (gr) were analyzed separately for all species. The results did not demonstrate a significant association between size and climate, globally, for the micro-chiropteran species analyzed, that is, the larger species are not significantly distributed more in the southern region of the country.
Tropical chiropteran species appear to respond more directly to local ecological patterns, such as the selective pressures associated with each population. Another possibility is that energetic-functional relationships in bats may be biased by wing morphological variation. Probably, the geometric bias in the morphology of flying animals implies a different morphophysiology for body size. Keywords: Biogeographic Patterns, Chiroptera, Bergmann Rule. 1. INTRODUCTION The investigation of spatial patterns in vertebrate body size has increased in recent decades.