Calculating biodiversity

Question 1

What do more stable ecosystems have?

Answer 1

Larger numbers of fairly evenly distributed species in good sized populations

Question 2

What does species richness not take into account?

Answer 2

Number of individuals of each species + ecosystem with dominant species arent as diverse + are less stable

Question 3

What is a better measurement of biodiversity and why?

Answer 3

Simpson’s index of diversity

Better measurement since it includes species richness + evenness

Question 4

What does the value 1 mean?

Answer 4

Infinite diversity

Question 5

What does the value 0 mean?

Answer 5

Zero diversity

The higher the value, the more diversity

Question 6

What does a quantitative measure of species diversity within a habitat take into account?

Answer 6

Number of species present + relative number of each species

Question 7

What judgements can be made about habitats based on the values from Simpson’s Index of Diversity?

Answer 7

• Large number means there is a lot of successful soecies, meaning higher diversity
• Low biodiversity means that nature if environment is extreme + stressful, vice versa for high biodiversity

There are complex types of food webs in high biodiversity + simple food webs in low biodiversity

• Low biodiversity has major effects on ecosystem if theres a change to environment whereas high biodiversity has little effect