Intrinsic rate of natural increase in Neotropical forest mammals: relationship to phylogeny and diet.

The relationship of diet and phylogeny to the intrinsic rate of population increase (r max) was examined in a sample of 39 mammalian species that live in Neotropical forests. Diets of species did not predict their r max, contrary to published predictions based on associations between basal metabolic rate and diet and between basal metabolic rate and r max. Phylogeny did however, apparently because life history characteristics and susceptibility to predation vary predictably with phylogeny and with one another.