Biodiversity' Flashcards
What is biodiversity
- the variety of living organisms in an area
Importance of biodiversity
- maintains a balanced ecosystem as species are interconnected
Which regions have the most biodiversity
- tropical moist regions
- closer to the equator= greater biodiversity
What is habitat biodiversity
- the number of habitats found within an area
What is a community
- all of the populations of living organisms in a particular habitat
What is species richness
- the number of DIFFERENT species living in an area
What is species evenness
- the comparison of the numbers of individuals of each species living in a community
What is genetic biodiversity, what’s it caused by
- the variety of genes that make up a species
- caused by different alleles
What is sampling
- taking measurements of a limited number of organisms present in an area to estimate total number without counting
What is species abundance
- number of individuals of a species present within an area
What is random sampling, how it can be done
- selecting individuals by chance, everyone has an equal chance of selection
- done by random selecting of co-ordinates to sample from a grid
What is opportunistic sampling
- uses organisms available
- weakest form
What is stratified sampling
- sub groups in a population identified, samples taken proportionally to sub-group ratios
What is systematic sampling
- take samples at specified points
What is sampling bias
- accident or purposeful
- researcher may choose certain areas that lead to bias results
- overcome by random sampling
Influence of chance on sampling
- organisms may not be represented due to chance
- more individuals studies= lower probability that chance interferes
- larger sample= more reliable results
What is a pooter
- catches small insects
- sucking on a mouthpiece to draw insects up into a holding chamber to be samples
- filter in mouthpiece to stop entry
What is a sweep net
- catches insects in areas of long grass
What is a pitfall trap
- catches crawling insects and invertebrates
- dig a hole in ground, deep enough that insects can’t crawl out
- covering over top to prevent water
What is tree beating
- samples invertebraes in trees and bushes
- cloth stretched under tree, shake tree to dislodge organisms, fall into cloth
What is kick sampling
- studies organisms in a river
- kick river bed/bank, hold net downstream to capture organisms released into water
What is a plant quadrat- not frame
- a frame containing a horizontal bar at set intervals
- long pins pushed through bar to reach floor, plants touching pins recorded
What is a frame quadrat
- square frame divided into a grid of squares
- species within each square recorded
- can randomise selected squares
- can place along transect
How to use a frame quadrat- density, frequency, percentage cover
- density= count number of plants, calculate density/ square meter, absolute measure
- frequency= used when hard to count, count squares in quadrat, work out frequency of occurrence, an estimate
- percentage cover= estimate area through observation
What is capture, mark , release, recapture
- capture as many individuals of a species as possible, mark captured ones, release back into habitat
- collect another sample after time, compare marked with unmarked
- greater number of marked organisms recaptured, the smaller the populations
What is an abiotic factor
- non-living conditions which affect a habitat and have a direct effect on organisms
How to measure abiotic factors, units
(wind, relative humidity, light intensity)
- wind speed= anemometer, m/s
- light intensity= light meter, lx
- relative humidity= humidity sensor, mg/dm3
What is Simpson’s index of biodiversity
- a way to measure biodiversity, takes evenness and richness into account