Fractal Dimension of Plants and Body Size Distribution in Spiders

The fractal dimension of natural habitats may influence both numbers and body size distribution of arthropods. Plants with highly complicated and interrupted leaf shapes, i.e. whose fractal dimension is high, may have more space available for small animals than for large ones. 2. Morse et al. (1985) argued that scaling of body size with number of individuals may be predicted by combining assumptions of population densities as proportional to metabolic rate −1 and vegetation fractals. 3. The hypothesis by Morse et al. (1985) was tested in a field experiment in which spiders were allowed to invade artificial plants placed in oak and spruce habitats