Matheus Baumgartner (he/him) provides the story behind his paper, “Taylor’s power law for freshwater fishes: Functional traits beyond statistical inevitability“, which was shortlisted for this year’s Elton Prize. We also hear a little about his journey into animal ecology.

About the paper

The stability of natural communities in response to disturbances is a highly engaging area of research in ecology and conservation, spanning a wide range of organisms—from viruses to large mammals and woody plants. While there are many ways to quantify stability, variability in abundance provides a particularly straightforward approach, as it integrates both population-level dynamics and multidimensional niche aspects. In the paper “Taylor’s power law for freshwater fishes: Functional traits beyond statistical inevitability”, my esteemed PhD colleague Oscar and I explored a specific aspect of stability related to the temporal fluctuations in freshwater fish abundances—namely, the slope of mean-variance relationships. Our focus was on how stability is influenced by local factors such as environmental conditions and climate, as well as how it may be shaped by species’ traits and their evolutionary history. To address this question, we analysed a continental-scale dataset on fish abundances from North America, employing a combination of multivariate and regression analyses to disentangle the effects of each driver. At the same time, we accounted for known statistical influences on stability estimation, such as the number of samples taken.

We found that both environmental factors and phylogeny played a significant role in determining stability. However, somewhat unexpectedly, we discovered that the most influential driver of community stability was life-history traits related to body size. At the local level, this suggests that larger-bodied species, which experience greater population-level stochasticity, tend to exhibit more asynchronous fluctuations in abundance. As a result, they demonstrate higher stability in the face of potential disturbances.

One of the first challenges in this study was identifying a robust long-term dataset that would allow us to test our hypotheses within an integrative framework. The next challenge involved selecting the most appropriate statistical methodology to address our research questions. Earlier versions of the paper explored approaches such as variance partitioning in multivariate analyses and mixed-effects models. However, we ultimately aimed for the simplest possible framework—although, in practice, the final protocol was far from straightforward.

Future steps in this research include linking our findings to theoretical mechanistic expectations, such as those proposed under competitive or metabolic theory. From a policy perspective, we believe our study highlights the crucial role of biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem stability and underscores the value of preserving diverse life-history strategies as both an evolutionary legacy and a key ecological process.

About the author

As a child, and with the privilege of being the son of two university professors, I was always captivated by explanations. Understanding why things are the way they are, exploring cause-and-effect relationships, and seeking evidence to support hypotheses were constant themes in my upbringing. This natural curiosity led me to pursue a career in Biology, deeply rooted in Ecology and Evolution. From my undergraduate studies through to my postdoctoral fellowship, I focused on ecological research, particularly on community stability and its many theoretical and applied dimensions—starting with empirical studies on fish communities and later expanding into computational models and network-based approaches.

As a researcher, I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship twice by a federal government agency (Conselho Nacional para o Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq) to conduct research in theoretical ecology. During this period, I delved deeper into the complexities of ecological systems, using mathematical and statistical frameworks to understand how communities respond to environmental change. This experience not only reinforced my analytical approach to ecological questions but also broadened my perspective on interdisciplinary collaborations, bridging ecological theory with statistical methodologies.

Shortly before the acceptance of this paper, I was admitted as a permanent professor in the Department of Statistics at the State University of Maringá, in southern Brazil. Currently, I continue my research on community stability, with my professional time now fully dedicated to both research and teaching. My ongoing projects explore how ecological networks function under different environmental pressures, aiming to contribute to both fundamental ecological theory and practical conservation strategies.