that large tropical areas can support more species. More area in the tropics allows species to have larger ranges and consequently larger population sizes. Thus, species with larger ranges are likely to have lower extinction rates (Rosenzweig 2003). Additionally, species with larger ranges may be more likely to undergo allopatric speciation, which would increase rates of speciation (Rosenzweig 2003). The combination of lower extinction rates and high rates of speciation leads to the high levels of species richness in the tropics. A critique of the geographical area hypothesis is that even if the tropics is the most extensive of the biomes, successive biomes north of the tropics all have about the same area. Thus, if the geographical area hypothesis is correct these regions should all have approximately the same species richness, which is not true, as is referenced by the fact that polar regions contain fewer species than temperate regions (Gaston and Blackburn 2000). To explain this, Rosenzweig (1992) suggested that if species with partly tropical distributions were excluded, the richness gradient north of the tropics should disappear. Blackburn and Gaston 1997 tested the effect of removing tropical species on latitudinal patterns in avian species richness in the New World and found there is indeed a relationship between the land area and the species richness of a biome once predominantly tropical species are excluded. Perhaps a more serious flaw in this hypothesis is some biogeographers suggest that the terrestrial tropics are not, in fact, the largest biome, and thus this hypothesis is not a valid explanation for the latitudinal species diversity gradient (Rohde 1997, Hawkins and Porter 2001). In any event, it would be difficult to defend the tropics as a "biome" rather than the geographically diverse and disjunct regions that they truly include. The effect of area on biodiversity patterns has been shown to be scale-dependent, having the strongest effect among species with small geographical ranges compared to those species with large ranges who are affected more so by other factors such as the mid-domain and/or temperature. Species-energy hypothesis The species energy hypothesis suggests the amount of available energy sets limits to the richness of the system. Thus, increased solar energy (with an abundance of water) at low latitudes causes increased net primary productivity (or photosynthesis). This hypothesis proposes the higher the net primary productivity the more individuals can be supported, and the more species there will be in