Determining statistical patterns irrespective of interacting agents (i.e. macroecology) is useful to explore the mechanisms driving population fluctuations and extinctions in natural food webs. Here, we tested four predictions of a neutral model on the distribution of community fluctuations ( CF ) and the distributions of persistence times ( APT ). Novel predictions for the food web were generated by combining (1) body size–de...

Aim To analyse the dependence of phytoplankton species richness on temperature within the framework of the metabolic theory of ecology ( MTE ) with explicit consideration of its assumptions and predictions. Location Lakes from the S outhern H emisphere – S outh A merica ( A rgentinean P ampa to T ierra del F uego) and A ntarctica – and N orthern H emisphere – N orth A merica ( USA ) and E urope ( D enmark to S pain). Methods T...