The species-area relationship in the Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology.

<p>Predicted and observed values of the local slope of the SAR are plotted as a function of the local value of the ratio of abundance to species richness. Data are derived from SARs for a variety of taxa, habitats, and spatial scales from multiple sources; a derivation of the theoretical prediction from MaxEnt and sources of data are provided elsewhere [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0117527#pone.0117527.ref004" target="_blank">4</a>]. Note that the often-assumed power-law form of the SAR with slope ∼0.25 would correspond to all data points lying on a horizontal line at the 0.25 mark on the vertical axis.