Biogeography of bird and mammal trophic structures

Does climate determine the trophic organization of communities around the world? A recent study showed that a limited number of community trophic structures emerge when co-occurrence of trophic guilds among large mammals is examined globally. We ask whether the pattern is general across a all terrestrial mammals (n=5272) and birds (n=9993). We found that the six community-trophic structures previously identified with large mammals are largely maintained when all mammals and birds are examined, both together and separately, and that bioclimatic variables, including net primary productivity (NPP), are strongly related to variation in the geographical boundaries of community trophic structures. We argue that results are consistent with the view that trophic communities are self-organized structures optimizing energy flows, and that climate likely acts as the main control parameter by modulating the amount of solar energy available for conversion by plants and percolated through food webs a...