Damuth's Law

How it works

Comparisons

Highlighted claims

• The model recovers Damuth's law for mammalian herbivore densities. — On the dynamics of mortality and the ephemeral nature of mammalian megafauna
• For larger mammals, the model predicts density scaling near body mass to the -0.82 power, slightly steeper than the empirical -0.77 Damuth slope. — On the dynamics of mortality and the ephemeral nature of mammalian megafauna
• The predicted density-body mass curve closely matches empirical mammalian herbivore densities but is slightly elevated under grass-like resource assumptions. — On the dynamics of mortality and the ephemeral nature of mammalian megafauna
• Variation in plant growth and carrying capacity explains much of the empirical spread around the density-body mass relationship. — On the dynamics of mortality and the ephemeral nature of mammalian megafauna