Ryding S, Klaassen M, Tattersall GJ, Gardner JL, Symonds MRE (in press) Response to ‘Allometry to evaluate Allen’s rule in climate warming’ by Santoro and Calzada. Trends in Ecology and Evolution
What’s the paper about?
After we’d published our 2021 review on shape-shifting in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, we were contacted by Simone Santoro who felt that we had misrepresented (or, perhaps more generously, misinterpreted) some aspects of the way that you control for body size in determining changes in appendage length. They published a comment in the journal to which we were invited to provide a response. In short, we disagreed with their assessment. While Simone and Calzada make some good points about relative vs. absolute appendage length, and also volumetric vs. areal vs. linear measurements we are confident that our approach and interpretation is sound.
What’s the story behind it?
Kind of covered it above, but a shout out here to Andrea Stephens, editor-in-chief of TREE, who handled the comment and response processes extremely efficiently and encouragingly. Also, Simone Santoro was never anything less than collegiate in his dealings with us, allowing us to see the comments before publication and provide some feedback then. Sara (Ryding) was really thankful that what could have been a stressful experience (with someone criticising your work) was done so tactfully and constructively. I think the Simone & Calzada comment, followed by our response, adds to further insight into the issues.
The Symonds Lab 