Biodiversity within a community

Question 1

Explain why it is more useful to calculate an index of diversity than to
record species richness.

Answer 1

index of diversity measures the population of each species because there may be many of some species

Question 2

how does increasing biodiversity help famers?

Answer 2

more predators of pests

Question 3

how does introducing a hedge in farmland not helpful for farmer

Answer 3

less crop yield reduced land so less income

Question 4

what is species richness?

Answer 4

number of different species in a community or habitat

Question 5

why is species richness limited

Answer 5

• number of individual species not known
• other samples may have more individual species
  -may have high species richness but low number of individuals

Question 6

how do we know if organisms are related?

Answer 6

if they share the same genus it shows they share the same ancestor

Question 7

Give two ways the students would have ensured their index of diversity
was representative of each habitat.

Answer 7

random sampling
large sample to get a mean

Question 8

reading a graph

Answer 8

-use peak
- use lowest reading

Question 9

The index of diversity of the insects was higher in the hedge than in the
barley field.
Suggest why.

Answer 9

more plants so more food and habitats for species

Question 10

Suggest how the scientists decided that 40 minutes was an appropriate
time.

Answer 10

able to repeat for different soils
find optimum time for recording number of speeches