Evaluating the influences of temperature, primary production, and evolutionary history on bivalve growth rates

AbstractOrganismal metabolic rates reflect the interaction of environmental and physiological factors. Thus, calcifying organisms that record growth history can provide insight into both the ancient environments in which they lived and their own physiology and life history. However, interpreting them requires understanding which environmental factors have the greatest influence on growth rate and the extent to which evolutionary history constrains growth rates across lineages. We integrated satellite measurements of sea-surface temperature and chlorophyll-a concentration with a database of growth coefficients, body sizes, and life spans for 692 populations of living marine bivalves in 195 s…

Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to heterogeneity are complementary: Response to comments on “Evaluating the influences of temperature, primary production, and evolutionary history on bivalve growth rates”