Island Biogeography Theory

A theory that models species richness on islands as a dynamic equilibrium between immigration of new species and extinction of resident species, with rates shaped by island size (area) and isolation (distance from source pools). In this dictionary it denotes the predictive framework linking colonization-extinction dynamics to spatial factors.

A spatially explicit ecological model that predicts an island's species richness as a dynamic equilibrium produced by the opposing processes of immigration and extinction, where immigration declines with isolation and extinction declines with island area (and associated population sizes and habitat heterogeneity).