Measuring biodiversity

Question 1

what three measurements do biologists look at to quantify biodiversity

Answer 1

• species richness
• species evenness
• biodiversity index

Question 2

what is species richness

Answer 2

species richness is the total number of different species in an ecosystem

Question 3

what is species evenness

Answer 3

• species evenness is a measure of the proportions of the population in an ecosystem.
• an ecosystem with one very dominant species would be considered less diverse than one with evenly spread populations of several species

Question 4

what is the biodiversity index

Answer 4

The biodiversity index is the best measure of the biodiversity of a region as it takes into account both the richness and evenness of an ecosystem

Question 5

what are the 2 major conditions for an area to consider a biodiversity hotspot

Answer 5

1. there must be a large number of endemic species

2. over 70% of the habitat needs to have already been destroyed