In a study of body size evolution in aquatic mammals, researchers used comparative phylogenetic analyses and fossil time series techniques to analyze body mass in nearly 7,000 living and fossil mammal species, and report that aquatic environments constrain mammals' body size to a greater extent than terrestrial environments, contrary to suggestions that aquatic habitats relieve size constraints on animals; modeling of energetics indicated that thermoregulatory and metabolic requirements likely force aquatic mammals to grow to large sizes, relative to terrestrial counterparts.
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Article #17-12629: "Energetic tradeoffs control the size distribution of aquatic mammals," by William Gearty, Craig McClain, and Jonathan Payne.
MEDIA CONTACT: William Gearty, Stanford University, CA; tel: 781-414-6059; e-mail: wgearty@stanford.edu
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences