PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hirt, Myriam R.
AU  - Jetz, Walter
AU  - Rall, Bjöern C.
AU  - Brose, Ulrich
TI  - Universal scaling of maximum speed with body mass - Why the largest animals are not the fastest
AID  - 10.1101/095018
DP  - 2016 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 095018
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/17/095018.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/17/095018.full
AB  - Speed is the fundamental constraint on animal movement, yet there is no general consensus on the determinants of maximum speed itself. Here, we provide a universal scaling model of maximum speed with body mass, which holds across locomotion modes, ecosystem types and taxonomic groups. In contrast to traditional power-law scaling, we predict a hump-shaped relationship due to a finite acceleration time for animals. This model is strongly supported by extensive empirical data (470 species with body masses ranging from 5.7×10−8 to 108,000 kg) from terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems. Our approach offers a novel concept of what determines the upper limit of animal movement, thus enabling a better understanding of realized movement patterns in nature and their multifold ecological consequences.