As a slope of 1 is nearly never observed in the real world, this graph depicting a slope of greater than 1 would never be seen in nature. It is impossible for this slope to occur in nature, because any given point of local species richness cannot be greater than the equivalent point of regional species richness due to the local species having to be contained in the regional species. The spatial scale of the region always has to be larger than its local counterpart. Looking at the graph, a local species richness of 11 would never be observed in nature when plotted against a regional species richness of 7. It is hypothetically impossible to ever witness.
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