The ecological and

biogeographical Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, ...

concept of the species pool describes all

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

available that could potentially colonize and inhabit a focal

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and 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 ...

area. The concept lays emphasis on the fact that "local communities 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, although — in contexts such as physics, chemistry or engineering — the transfer of energy (''e.g.'' as work or heat) is allowed. In ...

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. 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 ecological community, landscape or region. Species richness is simply a count of species, and it does not take into account the abundances of the species or their relative ab ...

of isolated natural communities. It helps to understand the composition 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—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. 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