6. Biodiversity Flashcards
The higher biodiversity…
Healthier ecosystem
Biodiversity
Variety of living organisms in an area .
Habitat
Place where organism lives
Rocky shore
Community
Is all the populations of different species in a habitat
What levels of biodiversity are there ?
Local
Global
Local biodiversity
Variety of different species living in small habitat local to you
Pond
Global biodiversity
Variety of species on Earth
8.7 million of total species on Earth
Varies in the world - greater at equator and decreases in poles
How can species diversity be measured ?
Species richness
Index of diversity
Species richness
Measure of the number of different species in community.
Taking random samples of a community and counting the number of different species.
Simple measure of biodiversity
What else affects biodiversity
Population sizes.
Species that are in community in very small numbers shouldn’t be treated the same as those in bigger populations .
Index of diversity
Calculated using equation that takes both number of species in a communing and population sizes.
Formula for index of diversity
N(N - 1)
d = —————
E n(n -1)
N - total number of organisms of all species.
n - total number of organisms of one species.
E - sum of (added together)
The higher the number of index of diversity…
The more diverse the area is
no biodiversity the index will be 1
Species
A group of similar organisms able to reproduce to give fertile offspring
