Mastodawn

A biomechanical model of predator-prey pursuit indicates that prey do not frequently escape because they are more maneuverable, but because predators' reaction times give the prey an advantage.

Summary: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bigger-faster-outfoxed-prey-predators.html

Original paper (not open access): https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2534397123

#Science #Ecology #Allometry

Bigger, faster, but still outfoxed: How prey escape predators

Predators are typically larger, faster, and more powerful than the animals they hunt. Yet in nature, most attacks fail. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by researchers from the University of Amsterdam Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), asks: why do prey get away so often? The key, the researchers found, lies in something the original model overlooked: reaction times.

Phys.org

Journal of Plant Ecology Sep 30, 2025

Junjiong Shao et al. rigorously investigated how this #Allometry can predict the biomass responses to #GlobalWarming.

#FunctionalEquilibriumTheory | #LeafArea | #MetabolicScalingTheory | #PlantBiomass

https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtaf029

Charrvein Sep 13, 2025

Variation of tooth traits in ecologically specialized and sympatric morphs

Manuscript resubmitted To #evolutionarybiology

We examined variation in dental traits in four sympatric morphs of Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) which differ in feeding specialisations, head and jaw bone morphology. We studied tooth numbers in six bones (dentary, maxilla, premaxilla, palatine, vomer and glossohyal)

Found cool things

#evolution #fish #ArcticCharr #maxilla #allometry #teeth

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.18.629189v2

Journal of Plant Ecology Sep 10, 2025

Huifang Wu et al. explored the coordination of above- and below-ground trait relationships among #MangrovePlants in tropical China and compared it with those of #Non_mangrovesPlants.

#LeafWaterUseTraits | #LeafEconomicsTraits | #RootTraits | #LeafWaterStorageTissues | #Allometry

https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtaf023

Show thread

Jocelyn Etienne Aug 20, 2025

Now published... and on the #BiophysJ cover!

Cell Adhesion Pattern Shows Conserved #Scalings under #Geometrical Control

Studying the relationship between the size and the #anatomy and #physiology of #living #organisms has proven useful in deciphering what the key physical constraints are that apply to them. For instance, total adhesive pad area is found to #scale like organism mass over a wide variety of animal species, possibly to resist against body weight.

In this study, we apply this approach at the cell scale to ask how large-scale geometrical constraints affect the organisation of #adhesion patches and the size of #cellSubstrate contact at different stages of the #cellSpreading process. Indeed, #cells, like many animals, adhere to their substrate. For that, they use specific protein complexes, called #focalAdhesions, which form patches often situated at the cell periphery.

cc @JonFouchard

https://www.biophysics.org/blog/cell-adhesion-pattern-shows-conserved-scalings-under-geometrical-control

#cellAdhesion #biophysics #allometry

Journal of Plant Ecology Jul 4, 2025

【💡High Cited 2020-2022 】
📖 #NitrogenAddition affects plant biomass allocation but not allometric relationships among different organs across the #Globe

#Meta-analysis | #Allometry | #BiomassFraction | #Ecosystem | #PlantFunctionalType

https://doi.org/10.1093/jpe/rtaa100

Alberto Perez-Posada May 8, 2025

Happy to see out our latest work on studying animal body size variations using single cell transcriptomics to measure gene expression of individual cells. Learned my fair bit of statistics here, and most importantly I learned how to build wrapper functions for "complex" tasks in R (such as differntial gene expression) in a modular way. Thanks to all the authors involved! https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adm7042 #singlecell #scrna #allometry #splitseq #planarians #generegulation

Miki :rstats:Apr 17, 2025

#30DayChartChallenge Día 17: Birds! 🐦 Hoy toca explorar relaciones en el mundo aviar con el increíble dataset AVONET. #RelationshipsWeek #Animals

Graficamos la Longitud del Ala vs. Masa Corporal (log-log) para >9500 especies. ¡Una relación clave en la biomecánica del vuelo! ✈️

Lo interesante:
1️⃣ Facetas por Hábitat: Vemos cómo la relación cambia (o no) entre Bosque, Marino, Pradera, etc. ¡La ecología importa!
2️⃣ Color por Orden: Los puntos coloreados muestran la diversidad taxonómica (12 órdenes principales). Passeriformes por todas partes!

Una visualización "complicada" (Día 15 😉) que revela la interacción entre tamaño, forma del ala, linaje evolutivo y ambiente.

🛠 #rstats #ggplot2 #readxl #data_table | Data: AVONET (Tobias et al. 2022) | Theme: #theme_week3_animals
📂 Código/Viz: https://t.ly/iEHPE

#Day17 #Birds #dataviz #DataVisualization #Ecology #Ornithology #Morphology #Allometry #AVONET #ggplot2 #RStats

Nicole Sharp Jun 27, 2024

Eagles, butterflies, and whales don’t appear to have much in common, but a new study shows that they — along with over 400 other flying and swimming animals of all sizes — flap with a frequency determined by a simple equation. Their beat frequency is proportional to the square root of their mass divided by their wing area. As you can see in the graph below, this scaling collapses pretty much all of the data onto a single line:

Illustration of the predicted relationship between size and wing frequency (black line) shown alongside various insects, birds, bats, penguins, and whales. The swimming animals also fall on the line, once adjustments are made for the difference in density between air and water.

It’s surprising to find such a consistent relationship among animals of such vastly different sizes and types. The next big question for researchers will be unpicking exactly why and how animals evolved to use such a consistent pattern between their size and their wing(/fin) frequency. (Image credit: top – E. Ward, graph – J. Jensen et al.; research credit: J. Jensen et al.; via Physics World)

https://fyfluiddynamics.com/2024/06/universal-wingbeats/

#allometry #biology #fluidDynamics #flying #mathematics #physics #science #swimming

Universal wing- and fin-beat frequency scaling

We derive an equation that applies for the wing-beat frequency of flying animals and to the fin-stroke frequency of diving animals like penguins and whales. The equation states that the wing/fin-beat frequency is proportional to the square root of the animal’s mass divided by the wing area. Data for birds, insects, bats, and even a robotic bird—supplemented by data for whales and penguins that must swim to stay submerged—show that the constant of proportionality is to a good approximation the same across all species; thus the equation is universal. The wing/fin-beat frequency equation is derived by dimensional analysis, which is a standard method of reasoning in physics. We finally demonstrate that a mathematically even simpler expression without the animal mass does not apply.

Brian J. Enquist Apr 18, 2024

Happy to share a new paper - "#scaling approaches and #macroecology provide a foundation for assessing ecological #resilience in the #anthropocene We advocate moving beyond qualitative resilience metaphors toward a more quantitative macroecological framework https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2023.0010 #biodiversity #allometry