Biological Stoichiometry

Paul C Frost, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
James J Elser, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

Published online: December 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0021229

Biological stoichiometry is the study of the balance of energy and multiple chemical elements in living systems. This biological perspective compares the elemental requirements of organisms for growth, reproduction and maintenance with that provided by their nutritional resources. It has found a relatively greater flexibility in the elemental composition of primary producers compared to consumers, which leads to elemental imbalances between adjacent trophic levels. For individual organisms, the relatively low supply of an element can alter physiological processes underlying its acquisition, incorporation and release. When sustained, elemental imbalances slow growth and limit reproduction of organisms, particularly those with relatively high elemental requirements. Elemental imbalances have been documented in diverse ecosystems and at multiple trophic levels and have been shown to affect key ecological and evolutionary processes underlying population dynamics, trophic interactions and ecosystem function.

Keywords: metabolism; biochemistry; physiology; ecology; evolution

Figure 1. Left: The components of the ‘growth rate hypothesis’ which link evolution of important life history traits associated with growth and development rate to ecological and ecosystem and ecological impacts because of their effects on cellular and biochemical allocations and biomass C:N:P stoichiometry. Right: Variation in cellular or body P content (% total P of dry mass; y-axis) is strongly correlated with P content derived from RNA (x-axis) both intra-specifically (various grey lines for each organism studied) and inter-specifically (green line). In each case, high P/high RNA data are associated with fast growth rates. On average, RNA contributed approximately 50% to total organism P across the entire data set. Note that the slope of the green line fit to the entire data set is 0.97 (not significantly different than 1), indicating that not only is RNA correlated with P, it is quantitatively explanatory of the observed variation. Reproduced by permission of Wiley-Blackwell from Elser et al. (2003). Growth rate-stoichiometry couplings in diverse biota. Ecology Letters 6(10): 936–943.
close
 References
    DeMott WR and Gulati RD (1999) Phosphorus limitation in Daphnia: evidence from a long term study of three hypereutrophic Dutch lakes. Limnology and Oceanography 44: 1557–1564.
    Elser JJ (2006) Biological stoichiometry: a chemical bridge between ecosystem ecology and evolutionary biology. American Naturalist 168: S25–S35.
    Elser JJ, Dobberfuhl DR, MacKay NA and Schampel JH (1996) Organism size, life history, and N:P stoichiometry: towards a unified view of cellular and ecosystem processes. BioScience 46: 674–684.
    Elser JJ, Sterner RW, Gorokhova E et al. (2000) Biological stoichiometry from genes to ecosystems. Ecology Letters 3: 540–550.
    Elser JJ and Urabe J (1999) The stoichiometry of consumer-driven nutrient recycling: theory, observations, and consequences. Ecology 80: 735–751.
    Frost PC, Evans-White MA, Finkel ZV, Jensen TC and Matzek V (2005) Are you what you eat? Physiological constraints on organismal stoichiometry in an elementally imbalanced world. Oikos 109: 18–28.
    Schade JD, Espeleta JF, Klausmeier CA et al. (2005) A conceptual framework for ecosystem stoichiometry: balancing resource supply and demand. Oikos 109: 40–51.
    book Sterner RW and Elser JJ (2002) Ecological Stoichiometry: The Biology of Elements from Molecules to the Biosphere. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Press.
 Further Reading
    Baudouin-Cornu P, Surdin-Kerjan Y, Marliere P and Thomas D (2001) Molecular evolution of protein atomic composition. Science 293: 297–300.
    Fagan WF, Siemann EH, Denno RF et al. (2002) Nitrogen in insects: implications for trophic complexity and species diversification. American Naturalist 160: 784–802.
    Moe SJ, Stelzer RS, Forman MR et al. (2005) Recent advances in ecological stoichiometry: insights for population and community ecology. Oikos 109: 29–39.
    Quigg A, Finkel ZV, Irwin AJ et al. (2003) The evolutionary inheritance of elemental stoichiometry in marine phytoplankton. Nature 425: 291–294.
    Reich PB and Oleksyn J (2004) Global patterns of plant leaf N and P in relation to temperature and latitude. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 101: 11001–11006.
    Urabe J and Sterner RW (2001) Contrasting effects of different types of resource depletion on life-history traits in Daphnia. Functional Ecology 15: 165–174.
    Vanni MJ, Flecker AS, Hood JM and Headworth JL (2002) Stoichiometry of nutrient recycling by vertebrates in a tropical stream: linking species identity and ecosystem processes. Ecology Letters 5: 285–293.

Related Sub-Topics:

Energy Flow and Stoichiometry
Contact Editor close
Submit a note to the editor about this article by filling in the form below.

* Required Field

Article Title: Biological Stoichiometry
 
How to Cite close
Frost, Paul C, and Elser, James J(Dec 2008) Biological Stoichiometry. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0021229]