The intrinsic rates of increase of insects of different sizes

A negative relationship between intrinsic rate of increase, r , and body size has only clearly been shown using data for species drawn from a number of phyla and covering several orders of magnitude in size. Analyses for more closely related species are equivocal. Data for ninety‐one species of insects, from nine orders, were used to examine the correlation between intrinsic rate of increase and size. Intrinsic rate of increase was negatively correlated with both length and weight across orders, but no relationship could be shown within orders. Generation times were positively related to body size, but there was no relationship between net reproductive rate ( R Q ) and size. These results support the hypothesis that documented relationships between species size and colonization success in insects could be a consequence of the scaling of intrinsic rate of increase with size.