Temperature and predation alter metabolic scaling without changing the size-based community structure of freshwater macroinvertebrates

Body size is a key trait that influences ecological processes such as metabolism, abundance and species interactions. While the metabolic theory of ecology (MTE) proposes a universal scaling of metabolic rate with body mass, recent evidence shows that this relationship is not fixed. Environmental factors like temperature and predation can alter the metabolic scaling exponent, potentially reshaping size distributions. However, most research has examined these patterns within individual species, l