Measuring biodiversity

Question 1

Define biodiversity?

Answer 1

• biodiversity is thought of as all the variation that exists within and between all forms of life

Question 2

Why is biodiversity very important?

Answer 2

• biodiversity is very important for the resilience of ecosystems; in that it allows them to resist changes in the environment

Question 3

What does species richness refer to? Give an example?

Answer 3

• species richness is the number of species within an ecosystem
• example = an ecosystem such as a rainforest that has a lot of different species is described as specie-rich

Question 4

What does species diversity include?

Answer 4

• species diversity includes the number of different species in an ecosystem, and also the abundance across the different species present

Question 5

What does species evenness refer to?

Answer 5

• species evenness is a measure of the relative abundance of the different species within a given area
• an area in which all the species have similar abundances, will have a greater species evenness

Question 6

What does abundance mean?
What does species abundance mean?

Answer 6

• abundance means a very large quantity of something
• species abundance is a measure of the relative number of individuals in the different species within a given area

Question 7

What does dominant species refer to?

Answer 7

• a dominant species is a species that prevails in an ecosystem

Question 8

What does endemic mean?

Answer 8

• species that belong to one area are said to be endemic to that region

Question 9

What is genetic diversity within a species?

Answer 9

• genetic diversity within a species is the diversity (variation) of alleles and genes in the genome of species

Question 10

What is the easiest way that you can measure species diversity?

Answer 10

• one way to determine a species diversity is to measure species richness in a habitat
• species richness is the number of species within a community
• a community with a greater number of species will have a greater species richness score

Question 11

How can species richness be a misleading indicator of diversity?

Answer 11

• species richness can be a misleading indicator of diversity as it does not take into account the number of individuals of each species

Question 12

What is a community?

Answer 12

a community is a group of populations of different species living in the same place at the same time that interact with each other

Question 13

What are known as heterozygotes? What is the result of a higher population of heterozygotes in a population?

Answer 13

• organisms that have two different alleles at a particular gene locus are known as heterozygotes
• the higher the proportion of heterozygotes in a population, the greater the genetic diversity of that population will be

Question 14

What equation can be used to calculate the heterozygosity index (H)?

Answer 14

H= number of heterozygotes/ number of individuals in the population

Question 15

What is random sampling?

Question 16

What is an index of diversity?

Answer 16

• an index of diversity is a measurement that describes the relationship between the number of species present and how each species contributes to the total number of organisms that are present in that community

Question 17

What is the index diversity formula?

Answer 17

D = N(N-1)/ Σn(n-1)

n= total number of organisms for a single species in the community
N= total number of organisms in the community
Σ= sum of
the larger the number obtained, the higher the level of diversity