Towards an animal economics spectrum for ecosystem research

The framework of the plant economics spectrum advanced our understanding of plant ecology and proved as a unifying concept across plant taxonomy, growth forms and biomes. Similar approaches for animals mostly focus on linking life-history and metabolic theory, but not on their application in ecosystem research. To fill this gap, we propose the animal economics spectrum (AES) based on broadly available traits that describe organismal size, biological times and rates.
To exemplify the feasibility and general usefulness of constructing the AES, we compiled data on adult and offspring body mass, life span, age at first reproduction, reproductive and metabolic rate of 98 terrestrial taxa from seven selected animal classes and mapped these taxa into an exemplary quantitative trait space.
The AES consists of two principal axes related to reproductive strategies and the pace of life; both axes are linked by animal metabolism. The AES thus closely mirrors seminal ideas on fundamental life-histor...