The relativity of biological space-time: Macroecology, phenology, and migration

Background/Question/Methods

According to the well-supported historical view of macroecology, solar energy is greatest at the equator and then predictably dissipates north and south toward the poles - dictating global biodiversity patterns. However, this theory remains incomplete.  The polar dissipation of energy is caused by the sun’s disc wrapping over the earth’s spherical surface but how organisms perceive this energy is complicated by relativity due to the earth’s dramatic movement under the sun’s disc. By controlling for this relativistic movement we can calculate a species’ fundamental niche in relation to latitude and daily activity time.  Accordingly, we hypothesize that an organism’s physical location, seasonal phenology, and time of daily activity are quantifiably predictable based on the relativistic movement of the Earth and Sun.  To test this hypothesis, we developed a statistical model to predict patterns of abundance, distribution, and diversity across the biosphere.

Results/Conclusions

Our model predicts several causal mechanisms for known macroecological and phenological phenomena.  One intriguing prediction is that birds remaining stationary relative to the sun’s disc are observed to migrate from the Earth's surface.  Our model predicts the general path and distance travelled during migration as well as the time and location of breeding.  Other evidence supports this migratory model. Most notably, migratory birds display characteristics expected of fixed objects observed from the perspective of a moving sphere, and migratory birds possess the few traits necessary for staying stationary relative to the sun’s disc: flight, magnetic orientation, and the maintenance of a constant solar angle.  By investigating the biosphere from the perspective of an outside observer, we realize that organisms are metabolic units moving in multiple directions underneath one, global energy source.  This perspective provides a comprehensive and parsimonious method for calculating the interrelatedness of daily activity, phenology, and spatial location from first principles.