Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

CONSERVATION

Smaller species are not better off

Contrary to previous studies, an analysis of 7,000 plant and animal species shows that species size is unrelated to changes in their population abundance.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Relationships between species size and local abundance trends.

References

  1. Almond, R. E. A., Grooten, M. & Peterson, T. Living Planet Report 2020-Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss (World Wildlife Fund, 2020).

  2. Leung, B. et al. Nature 588, 267–271 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Dornelas, M. et al. Ecol. Lett. 22, 847–854 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Terry, J. C. D., O’Sullivan, J. D. & Rossberg, A. G. Nat. Ecol. Evol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01624-8 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Cardillo, M. et al. Science 309, 1239–1241 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Cardillo, M. Proc. R. Soc. B 288, 20203011 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Chichorro, F., Juslen, A. & Cardoso, P. Biol. Conserv. 237, 220–229 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Garcia-R, J. C. & Di Marco, M. Biol. Conserv. 249, 108730 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Rocha-Ortega, M. et al. Proc. R. Soc. B 287, 20192645 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Olden, J. D., Hogan, Z. S. & Vander Zanden, M. J. Global Ecol. Biogeogr. 16, 694–701 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Meiri, S. & Chapple, D. G. Biol. Conserv. 204, 6–15 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Dornelas, M. et al. Global Ecol. Biogeogr. 27, 760–786 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Venter, O. et al. Nat. Commun. 7, 12558 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Schipper, A. M. et al. Global Change Biol. 22, 3948–3959 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Gonzalez, A. et al. Ecology 97, 1949–1960 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brian Leung.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Leung, B. Smaller species are not better off. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 134–135 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01636-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01636-4

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing