The species concept itself is still open to debate and has been discussed since the binomial nomenclature system was introduced. All habitat conversions are complete and render the habitat sterile. There is disagreement over the relative weight that should be given to forest alteration versus forest clearance in determining rates of deforestation. There are, however, ways to compensate for persistent species when this is assumption is not met. While we believe that it is possible to incorporate parameters into the model to compensate for these effects, the data needed are not currently available for plants.
Areas occupied by species are equal to or less than areas converted.
Populations are represented by points in conceptual space that have a probability of being randomly chosen based on the extent or rate of the land conversion. In our data sets we have taken each collection site reported by the various authors to represent disjunct populations. The number of sites is static. Over short periods of time we assume no significant dispersal of propagules to new sites. Our estimate of the plant distribution profiles are representative of reality.