Abstract. Metabolism provides a basis for using first principles of physics, chemistry, and biology to link the biology of individual organisms to the ecology of populations, communities, and ecosystems. Metabolic rate, the rate at which organisms take up, transform, and expend energy and materials, is the most fundamental biological rate. We have developed a quantitative theory for how metabolic rate varies with body size and temperature. Metabolic theory predicts how metabolic rate, by setting the rates of resource uptake from the environment and resource allocation to survival, growth, and reproduction, controls ecological processes at all levels of organization from individuals to the biosphere. Examples include: (1) life history attributes, including development rate, mortality rate, age at maturity, life span, and population growth rate; (2) population interactions, including carrying capacity, rates of competition and predation, and patterns of species diversity; and (3) ecosystem processes, including rates of biomass production and respiration and patterns of trophic dynamics.Data compiled from the ecological literature strongly support the theoretical predictions. Eventually, metabolic theory may provide a conceptual foundation for much of ecology, just as genetic theory provides a foundation for much of evolutionary biology.

The diversity of life is ultimately generated by evolution, and much attention has focused on the rapid evolution of ecological traits. Yet, the tendency for many ecological traits to instead remain similar over time [niche conservatism (NC)] has many consequences for the fundamental patterns and processes studied in ecology and conservation biology. Here, we describe the mounting evidence for the importance of NC to major topics in ecology (e.g. species richness, ecosystem function) and conservation (e.g. climate change, invasive species). We also review other areas where it may be important but has generally been overlooked, in both ecology (e.g. food webs, disease ecology, mutualistic interactions) and conservation (e.g. habitat modification). We summarize methods for testing for NC, and suggest that a commonly used and advocated method (involving a test for phylogenetic signal) is potentially problematic, and describe alternative approaches. We suggest that considering NC: (1) focuses attention on the withinspecies processes that cause traits to be conserved over time, (2) emphasizes connections between questions and research areas that are not obviously related (e.g. invasives, global warming, tropical richness), and (3) suggests new areas for research (e.g. why are some clades largely nocturnal? why do related species share diseases?).

The latitudinal gradient of increasing biodiversity from poles to equator is one of the most prominent but least understood features of life on Earth. Here we show that species diversity can be predicted from the biochemical kinetics of metabolism. We first demonstrate that the average energy flux of populations is temperature invariant. We then derive a model that quantitatively predicts how species diversity increases with environmental temperature. Predictions are supported by data for terrestrial, freshwater, and marine taxa along latitudinal and elevational gradients. These results establish a thermodynamic basis for the regulation of species diversity and the organization of ecological communities.

Summary1. We present a model that yields ecosystem-level predictions of the flux, storage and turnover of carbon in three important pools (autotrophs, decomposers, labile soil C) based on the constraints of body size and temperature on individual metabolic rate. 2. The model predicts a 10 000-fold increase in C turnover rates moving from tree-to phytoplankton-dominated ecosystems due to the size dependence of photosynthetic rates. 3. The model predicts a 16-fold increase in rates controlled by respiration (e.g. decomposition, turnover of labile soil C and microbial biomass) over the temperature range 0-30 °C due to the temperature dependence of ATP synthesis in respiratory complexes. 4. The model predicts only a fourfold increase in rates controlled by photosynthesis (e.g. net primary production, litter fall, fine root turnover) over the temperature range 0-30 °C due to the temperature dependence of Rubisco carboxylation in chloroplasts. 5. The difference between the temperature dependence of respiration and photosynthesis yields quantitative predictions for distinct phenomena that include acclimation of plant respiration, geographic gradients in labile C storage, and differences between the short-and long-term temperature dependence of whole-ecosystem CO 2 flux. 6. These four sets of model predictions were tested using global compilations of data on C flux, storage and turnover in ecosystems. 7. Results support the hypothesis that the combined effects of body size and temperature on individual metabolic rate impose important constraints on the global C cycle. The model thus provides a synthetic, mechanistic framework for linking global biogeochemical cycles to cellular-, individual-and community-level processes.

4.The fact that quarter-power allometric scaling is so pervasive in biology suggests that different allometric relations have a common, mechanistic origin and provides an empirical basis for theoretical models that derive these scaling exponents.