Why whales are big but not bigger: Physiological drivers and ecological limits in the age of ocean giants.

摘要: The largest animals are marine filter feeders, but the underlying mechanism of their large size remains unexplained. We measured feeding performance and prey quality to demonstrate how whale gigantism is driven by interplay abundance harvesting mechanisms that increase capture rates energy intake. foraging efficiency toothed whales feed on single constrained prey, whereas filter-feeding baleen seasonally exploit vast swarms small at high efficiencies. Given temporally spatially aggregated provides an evolutionary pathway extremes in body not available lineages must one a time. Maximum feeders likely availability across space