Measuring Diversity
Assessment to test for the monitoring environmental change, damage or the success of conservation effects
Extreme Environments
Species Diversity is low in extreme environments which are dominated by abiotic factors (non-living factors such as temperature, pH etc) where there is a population that may fluctuate drastically
Species Diversity
Species diversity is the number of different species and the number of individuals of each species within any one community
It is more useful to measure the species diversity compared to the species richness due to it focusing more on the amount of induvial in a species rather than just how many species there are.
Diversity and the Ecosystem
Ecosystems that undergo abiotic factors may cause a low-level organism in the food change to be unable to produce food for the next trophic level.
In a diverse ecosystem, the higher trophic level can change to another food course which is available, however in a low diversity ecosystem, another food source may not be available
Index of Biodiversity

N = total number of all organisms
n = Population size of the particular species
e.g.
Species |
Number of individuals seen |
Standard Deviation n x (n-1) |
Magpie |
11 |
11 x 10 = 110 |
Black Headed Gull |
4 |
4 x 3 = 12 |
Crow |
4 |
4 x 3 = 12 |
Blackbird |
1 |
1 x 0 = 0 |
Starling |
37 |
37 x 36 = 1332 |
Sparrow |
7 |
7 x 6 = 42 |
Total |
64 |
1508 |
d = 1508
64 (64-1)
d = 0.374
The closer the value is to 0, that means there is infinite diversity, whereas closer to 1 means there is no diversity.