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First published online April 26, 2005
Journal of Experimental Biology 208, 1749-1769 (2005)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2005
doi: 10.1242/jeb.01588

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Review article: Lifespan, reproduction and ecology

Scaling and power-laws in ecological systems

Pablo A. Marquet^1,2,*, Renato A. Quiñones³, Sebastian Abades¹, Fabio Labra¹, Marcelo Tognelli¹, Matias Arim¹ and Marcelo Rivadeneira¹

¹ Center for Advanced Studies in Ecology and Biodiversity (CASEB) and Departamento de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, casilla 114-D, Santiago, Chile
² Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
³ Centro de Investigación Oceanográfica en el Pacífico Sur-Oriental (COPAS) and departamento de Ocenografía, Universidad de Concepción, Casilla 160-C, Concepción, Chile

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: pmarquet{at}bio.puc.cl)

Accepted 14 March 2005

Summary

Scaling relationships (where body size features as the independent variable) and power-law distributions are commonly reported in ecological systems. In this review we analyze scaling relationships related to energy acquisition and transformation and power-laws related to fluctuations in numbers. Our aim is to show how individual level attributes can help to explain and predict patterns at the level of populations that can propagate at upper levels of organization. We review similar relationships also appearing in the analysis of aquatic ecosystems (i.e. the biomass spectra) in the context of ecological invariant relationships (i.e. independent of size) such as the `energetic equivalence rule' and the `linear biomass hypothesis'. We also discuss some power-law distributions emerging in the analysis of numbers and fluctuations in ecological attributes as they point to regularities that are yet to be integrated with traditional scaling relationships and which we foresee as an exciting area of future research.

Key words: scaling, power-law, metabolism, complexity

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