The ecological and biogeographical concept of the species pool describes all

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

available that could potentially colonize and inhabit a focal

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

area. The concept lays emphasis on the fact that "local

communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place (geography), place, set of Norm (social), norms, culture, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Ide ...

aren't

closed system A closed system is a natural physical system that does not allow transfer of matter in or out of the system, althoughin the contexts of physics, chemistry, engineering, etc.the transfer of energy (e.g. as work or heat) is allowed. Physics In cl ...

s, and that the species occupying any local site typically came from somewhere else", however, the species pool concept may suffer from the logical

fallacy of composition The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one inference, infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. A trivial example might be: "This tire is made of rubber; therefo ...

. Most local communities, however, have just a fraction of its species pool present. It is derived from MacArthur and Wilson's Island Biogeography Theory that examines the factors that affect the

species richness Species richness is the number of different species represented in an community (ecology), ecological community, landscape or region. Species richness is simply a count of species, and it does not take into account the Abundance (ecology), abunda ...

of isolated natural communities. It helps to understand the

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

and richness of local communities and how they are influenced by biogeographic and evolutionary processes acting at large spatial and temporal scales. The absent portion of species pool—

dark diversity Dark diversity is the set of species that are absent from a study site but present in the surrounding region and potentially able to inhabit particular ecological conditions. It can be determined based on species distribution, dispersal potential a ...

—has been used to understand processes influencing local communities. Methods to estimate potential but absent species are developing. It has been hypothesized that there might be a direct correlation between species richness and the size of the species pool for

plant communities A plant community is a collection or Association (ecology), association of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The comp ...

. Elsewhere, it was reported that "trade-offs and species pool structure (size and trait distribution) determines the shape of the plant productivity-diversity relationship.

References

{{reflist Biogeography Measurement of biodiversity