Metabolism, Scaling, and Biodiversity

University of Miami mini-course on “Metabolism, Scaling, and Biodiversity”
Lecture 1, 15 Feb

Topic: Background: some basics on metabolism and scaling

Assigned readings: Kleiber (1932), Blueweiss et al (1978), West and Brown (2005)

Additional readings: Schmidt-Nielsen (1984) Scaling: Why is animal size so important? (this book is still probably the clearest treatment of scaling in biology); Other good books are Peters (1983), McMahon and Bonner (1983), Calder (1984), Brown and West (2000)

Lecture 2, 17 Feb

Topic: Allometric scaling of metabolic rate: Is the exponent 2/3, 3/4, or something else?

Assigned readings: West et al (1997), West et al (1999), Reich et al (2006), White et al (2007), White et al (2009), Mori et al (2009)

Additional readings: Heusner (1982), Feldman and McMahon (1983), Dodds et al (2001), Glazier (2005), Makarieva et al (2008)

Lecture 3, 19 Feb

Topic: Extensions and applications: temperature, cells, growth and development, molecular evolution, sleep, colonial organisms

Assigned readings: Gillooly et al (2001), Gillooly et al (2002), West et al (2002), Savage et al (2007), Hou et al (in press in PNAS), Delong et al (manuscript)

Additional readings:

Lecture 4, 22 Feb

Topic: Metabolic ecology

Assigned readings: Brown et al (2004), O’Connor et al (2007 marine dispersal), O’Connor et al (2007 critique), Allen and Gillooly (2007), de Castro and Gaedke (2008), O’Connor et al (2009)

Additional readings: Sheldon et al. (1972), Sterner and Elser (2002 Ecological Stoichiometry), Gillooly et al (2005), Li (2002), Lopez-Urrutia (2006), Kaspari et al (2008, 2009)

Lecture 5, 24 Feb

Topic: Metabolism, species diversity, and cultural diversity

Assigned readings: Rohde (1992), Mace and Pagel (1995), Collard and Foley (2002), Allen and Gillooly (2007), Fuhrman et al (2008), Wang et al (2009)

Additional readings: Currie (1991), Allen et al (2002), Algar et al (2007)

Lecture 6, 26 Feb

Topic: Human metabolic and macroecology

Assigned readings: Moses and Brown (2003), Bettencourt et al (2007), Brown et al (in press in PNAS)

Additional readings: Lubchenco et al (1991), Palmer et al (2005), Hamilton et al (2007 PNAS), Hamilton et al (2007 PRC), ESA (2009), Hamilton et al (2009), Burnside et al (manuscript)