Question

In class we discussed many metrics of species abundance, richness, and diversity. How are the various metrics of species richness and diversity important or useful for understanding ways that humans can save populations, communities, and ecosystems? Describe your answer fully using examples of research that we discussed in class (e.g., abundance, relative abundance, richness, diversity, and biodiversity).

Answer 1

In the ecosystem, biodiversity is the difference, or variation, among living organisms within that ecosystem. This includes genetic variation among members of the same species or different species in an ecosystem. The biodiversity increases with the number of different species of organisms that live in that particular ecosystem.

Species abundance is the number of individuals that are present per species.

Species Richness is the number of groups of functionally or genetically related individuals. Richness can be stated as the number of species and is usually called species richness. For example, if we have two plots of lands, A and B, and plot A has twenty-four species of plants and plot B has Sixty four species of plants, plot B has higher species richness.

Relative species abundance is the evenness of biodiversity. It refers to how common or rare a species is relative to other species in a particular community or location. It is the percent composition of an organism of a certain kind relative to the total number of organisms in the area. For example, relative species abundances might describe all planktonic copepods in a particular marine environment or all terrestrial birds in a forest community.