Correct option is D
Environmental filtering restricts the species that can survive in a particular community based on the specific conditions of the environment, such as temperature, moisture, soil type, and light availability. The process is selective and results in only those species that are well-suited to the environmental conditions being able to persist. Hence, the local species pool will be a subset of the regional species pool.
If the regional species pool consists of 60 species, then only a fraction of those species, depending on how restrictive the environmental conditions are, will be able to persist in the local environment. Generally, the local species pool is much smaller than the regional species pool due to filtering effects.
In this case, it is most likely that around 50% or fewer of the regional species pool will be present in the local community, and that corresponds to 30 species as the correct answer
Information Booster:
- Environmental filtering reduces the species pool by excluding species not adapted to the local environment.
- The local species pool will never exceed the regional pool under filtering conditions. Therefore, options suggesting more than 60 species are incorrect.
