Related topics: species

Biodiversity loss may accelerate ecosystem destabilization

What maintains stability within an ecosystem and prevents a single best competitor from displacing other species from a community? Does ecosystem stability depend upon the presence of a wide variety of species, as early ecologists ...

Brown bears digging up artificial forests, study shows

Brown bears foraging for food in the Shiretoko Peninsula of Hokkaido, Japan, have been disrupting tree growth in artificial conifer forests, according to a new study published in Ecology. Researchers compared soil and tree ...

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Species diversity

Species diversity is an index that incorporates the number of species in an area and also their relative abundance. It is generally a much more useful value than species richness.

The most common index of species diversity is a family of equations called Simpson's Diversity Index[1].

Here is one such example

D = (n / N)2

Where n is the total number of organisms of a particular species and N is the total number of organisms of all species.D is the value of diversity. It can range between 0 and 1, whre 1 is the richest an Ecosystem can possibly be.

Humans have a huge effect on species diversity; the main reasons are: - Destruction, Modification, and/or Fragmentation of Habitat - Introduction of Exotic Species - Overharvest - Global Climate Change

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA