Ecological emergence of thermal clines in body size

The unprecedented rate of global warming requires a better understanding of how ecosystems will respond. Organisms often have smaller body sizes under warmer climates (Bergmann's rule and the temperature‐size rule), and body size is a major determinant of life histories, demography, population size, nutrient turnover rate, and food‐web structure. Therefore, by altering body sizes in whole communities, current warming can potentially disrupt ecosystem function and services. However, the underlying drivers of warming‐induced body downsizing remain far from clear. Here, we show that thermal clines in body size are predicted from universal laws of ecology and metabolism, so that size‐dependent selection from competition (both intra and interspecific) and predation favors smaller individuals under warmer conditions. We validate this prediction using 4.1 × 106 individual body size measurements from French river fish spanning 29 years and 52 species. Our results suggest that warming‐induced body downsizing is an emergent property of size‐structured food webs, and highlight the need to consider trophic interactions when predicting biosphere reorganizations under global warming.