1. Consumption rates constitute a fundamental, yet relatively elusive quantity in ecophysiology and ecosystem ecology. Measuring consumption rates of highly mobile animals is often challenging, especially in the wild, which makes scientists rely on proxies such as bite rates. However, we still lack a theoretical framework that formally bridges these quantities.
2. Here we expanded a model based on the Metabolic Theory of Ecology to quantitatively characterise how consumption rates are related to bite rates, and predict how the latter should change with body size, temperature and diet. We test our predictions using mensurative experiments from eight populations of redlip blennies—genus Ophioblennius—across the Atlantic Ocean.
3. Bite rates scaled with body size according to our theoretical predictions. On the other hand, they increased at a faster-than-predicted rate with rising temperatures. This finding might be explained if the energetic content of Ophioblennius spp. diet—which is primarily composed by detritus across all populations—decreases with temperature. Yet, they seem to be consistent with the idea that populations adapted to warmer environments exhibit higher-than-expected grazing pressure on primary producers.
4. Current ocean warming is set to skew body size distributions towards smaller sizes, and our model indicates that the combined effects of smaller sizes and higher temperatures will increase mass-specific consumption rates, with direct implications for how energy flows through food webs.

中文翻译：

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预测体型、温度和饮食对动物饲养率的影响

1. 消耗率是生态生理学和生态系统生态学中一个基本但相对难以捉摸的数量。测量高度流动动物的消耗率通常具有挑战性，尤其是在野外，这使得科学家们依赖于诸如咬伤率之类的指标。然而，我们仍然缺乏正式连接这些量的理论框架。
2. 在这里，我们扩展了一个基于生态代谢理论的模型，以定量表征消费率与咬伤率的关系，并预测后者应如何随体型、温度和饮食而变化。我们使用来自横跨大西洋的八种红唇鹬属（Ophioblennius）种群的测定实验来检验我们的预测。
3. 根据我们的理论预测，咬合率与体型成比例。另一方面，随着温度的升高，它们的增加速度快于预期。如果Ophioblennius spp的能量含量可以解释这一发现。饮食——主要由所有人群的碎屑组成——随温度下降。然而，它们似乎与适应温暖环境的种群对初级生产者表现出高于预期的放牧压力的观点一致。
4. 当前的海洋变暖将使体型分布向更小尺寸倾斜，我们的模型表明，更小尺寸和更高温度的综合影响将增加特定质量的消耗率，直接影响能量如何通过食物网流动。