ReviewJournal of physiological anthropology2022
Bergmann's rule is a "just-so" story of human body size.
Review in Journal of physiological anthropology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reconstruction and Comparative Analysis of a Large Late Pleistocene Modern Human Femur From Wajak, Indonesia.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Multifactorial drivers of spatial variation in human body form across modern China.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Neandertal Cold Adaptation: Technological, Anatomical, and Physiological Responses to Cold Stress in One of Our Closest Fossil Relatives.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Prevalence and changes of childhood overweight across China and its provinces from 2000 to 2030.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Article
- Biological Mechanisms for Allen's Rule: DNA Methylation as Mediator of the Association Between In Utero Exposure to Environmental Heat and Tibial Growth in Childhood.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- In Search of Environmental Factors Associated With Global Differences in Birth Weight and BMI.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- An Interspecific Assessment of Bergmann's Rule in Tenebrionid Beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae) along an Elevation Gradient.Insects · 2024Article
- Coping with extreme heat: current exposure and implications for the future.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Review
- Ecological rules for global species distribution also predict performance variation in Ironman triathletes.PloS one · 2023Article
- A cross-sectional study on dietary assessment, oral hygiene behavior, and oral health status of adolescent girls.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Carl Bergmann was an astute naturalist and physiologist. His ideas about animal size and shape were important advances in the pre-Darwinian nineteenth century. Bergmann's rule claims that that in cold climates, large body mass increases the ratio of volume-to-surface area and provides for maximum metabolic heat retention in mammals and birds. Conversely, in warmer temperatures, smaller body mass increases surface area relative to volume and allows for greater heat loss. For humans, we now know that body size and shape are regulated more by social-economic-political-emotional (SEPE) factors as well as nutrition-infection interactions. Temperature has virtually no effect. Bergmann's rule is a "just-so" story and should be relegated to teaching and scholarship about the history of science. That "rule" is no longer acceptable science and has nothing to tell us about physiological anthropology.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.