| Comparative animal physiology and related fields (named here "ecological physiology") are entering a time of synthesis in the form of a quest for large scales patterns. However, these new approaches need to be supplied by great amounts of data, representative of existing animal forms. We tested whether this is the case by performing a quantitative survey in the most important media for ecological physiologists. We found that ecological physiologists have clear biases toward some taxonomic classes, which represent one third of existing animal phyla. Non-taxonomic characterization of animals (endothermy/ectothermy, aquatic/terrestrial), however, produced a more balanced picture. In addition, ecological physiologists appear to be mostly intraspecific... |
