EXPERIMENT 6

Measuring Biodiversity
Ecology – Laboratory (BIO1220)
Prepared by Rudolph Valentino A. Docot Department of Biological Sciences
Far Eastern University
 What can we Measure?
• Possibilities
– Species (richness) – Within species
– Abundance diversity (genetic,
– Diversity morphological)
– Guild – Others?
– Trophic structure
– Evolutionary diversity
 Why Study Biological Diversity?
• Diversity is Interesting
– Stimulated many poets,
artists, naturalists, etc.
– Provide the basic
information for
Ecotourism
• High biodiversity leads to
increasing visitation
• Common in the tropics
 Why Study Biological Diversity?
• Diversity as an Indicator
– Diversity = Health of the Ecosystem
– Diversity and stability relationship
– Diversity and recovery from disturbances
– Diversity as a detective tool of the past
Use to determine how long-ago land was altered by
human or natural activity
 The Number of Species and their
Relative Abundance Define Diversity
• Species richness –
the number of groups of
genetically or
functionally related
individuals
• Abundance – refers to
the number of
individuals per species
 The Number of Species and their
Relative Abundance Define Diversity

• The patterns of species richness

and relative abundance can be
compared between communities
– Relative abundance represents
the percentage each species
contributes to the total number of
individuals of all species
 How to Compute Diversity?
• Diversity – relationship between richness and
abundance
– Computed using different indices
• Each Index differs in the mathematical method
of relating the two main key features: Richness
and Abundance
– One is often given greater prominence than the
other
– Formulae significantly differ between indices
 Evenness: Definition
• Evenness – proportions of species or functional
groups present on a site
• Rarely are all
species equally
abundant
– Some are better
competitors, more
fecund, abundant
in general than
others
 Evenness: Definition
Higher Evenness, Diversity

• Evenness increases
diversity
– Increasing evenness =
Greater Diversity!
• True for all indices
 Evenness as an Indicator
• For many ecosystems, high evenness is a
sign of ecosystem health
– Don’t have a single species dominating the
ecosystem
– Often invasive species dominate
– Disturbed areas have mostly edge species
• Simple biodiversity
• Dominance of a few species ecologically, numerically
 Evenness Across Locations
• Between ecosystem comparability is usually not
possible
– Some areas have lower biodiversity naturally than others
• Example: Taiga is naturally less even than deciduous forest
since it is often dominated by a single species
– Seasonality may confound the comparison as well
• Earlier in temperate growing season, less even than later
• When would you want to compare locations?
– Trying to prioritize areas for conservation
– Based largely on biodiversity (not ecological uniqueness)
 Diversity of Diversities
• Diversity indexes provide a way to
quantify the relationship between species
number and relative abundance
– Two most common diversity index:
• Simpson's index (D) = S(ni/N)2
• Shannon (or Shannon-Weiner) index (H) =
S(pi)(log2 pi)
 Diversity Levels
• Progress from local to regional levels
– Point – diversity at a single point or microenvironment
– Alpha – within habitat diversity
• Usually consist of several subsamples in a habitat
– Beta – species diversity along transects and gradients
• High beta indicates number of species increases rapidly with
additional sampling sites along the gradient
– Gamma – diversity of a larger geographical unit (island,
continents etc)
– Epsilon – regional diversity
 Alpha Diversity Indices
• All based on proportional species abundances
– Species abundance models have drawbacks
• Tedious and repetitive
• Problems if the data do not violate more than one
model
• Building upon the species abundance models
– Allows for formal comparisons between sites /
treatments
 Alpha Diversity Indices
Two General Categories
• Species Dominance Measures (simple computation
– Weighted towards abundance of the commonest species
– Total species richness is down weighted relative to
evenness
– Examples: Simpson, McIntosh, and Berger-Parker
• Information Theory (complicated computation)
– Diversity (or information) of a natural system is similar to
info in a code or message
– Examples: Shannon-Weiner and Brillouin Indices
 Simpson Index Values
• Derived by Simpson (1949)
– A dominance index because it gives more weight to common
or dominant species. In this case, a few rare species with only
a few representatives will not affect the diversity
• Simpson's index of diversity = 1 – D
– The greater the value of D, the lower the diversity
• Simpson's reciprocal index or Simpson's diversity
index = 1/D
– The lowest possible value is 1, representing a community
containing only one species
– The maximum value is the number of species in the
community (species richness: S)

n = number of individuals of each species
N = total number of individual of all species
STEP 1: Insert the total number
in the set (89) into the formula
N (N – 1) and solve:
89 (89 – 1) = 7832
STEP 2: Calculate n(n – 1)
• Subtract 1 from each individual
count
• Take each answer from (1) and
multiply by each n
 STEP 3: Calculate D
• Divide your answer from Step
2 by your answer from Step 1
• Subtract your answer from 1
n = number of individuals of each species
N = total number of individual of all species D = 1 – (6488 / 7832) = 0.17
SIMPSONS INDEX

• Simpson's index of diversity = 1 – D

– 0.83
• Simpson's reciprocal index or
Simpson's diversity index = 1/D
– 5.882
 Shannon-Weiner
• Assumes all species are represented in a
sample and that they are randomly
sampled
– In the absence of diversity, where only one
species is present, H = 0
H = diversity index,
pi = proportion of individual species (i)
= relative abundance of species (i)
ln = natural logarithm
 Shannon-Weiner
Species Number of Species pi Ln Pi Pi * Ln Pi
Species 1 34
Species 2 123
Species 3 23
Species 4 45
Species 5 76
Species 6 98
Species 7 47
Species 8 28
Species 9 24
Species 10 11
Species 11 34
Species 12 4
Species 13 2
Species Number of pi Ln Pi Pi * Ln Pi
Species
Species 1 34 0.061930783 -2.781737917 -0.172275208
Species 2 123 0.224043716 -1.495914086 -0.33515015
Species 3 23 0.041894353 -3.172604226 -0.132914203
Species 4 45 0.081967213 -2.501435952 -0.205035734
Species 5 76 0.138433515 -1.977365101 -0.273733602
Species 6 98 0.178506375 -1.723130963 -0.307589862
Species 7 47 0.0856102 -2.45795084 -0.210425664
Species 8 28 0.051001821 -2.975893931 -0.151776011
Species 9 24 0.043715847 -3.130044611 -0.136832551
Species 10 11 0.02003643 -3.910203169 -0.078346512
Species 11 34 0.061930783 -2.781737917 -0.172275208
Species 12 4 0.007285974 -4.92180408 -0.035860139
Species 13 2 0.003642987 -5.614951261 -0.020455196
549 -2.23267004
H = 2.23267004
 Shannon-Weiner
• The number of equally-common species required
to give a particular value of an index is called the
"effective number of species".
– This is the true diversity of the community in
question
– For example, the true diversity associated with a
Shannon-Wiener index of 4.5 is exp (4.5) = 90
effective species
– Not yet clear if ENS improves interpretation and
comparison of biodiversity monitoring data, and
ultimately resource management decisions
 Vegetation Analysis
• Vegetation analysis is a
method to study species
composition and structure
of a plant community
– Plays a crucial role as a
baseline data for helping
plant species and
community to adapt to
future climate change
 Vegetation Analysis
• Density – measure of the number of organisms
that make up a population
• Frequency – number of times a plant species
is present in a given number of quadrats of a
particular size
• Importance value - the sum of the above three
relative measures for a species
– How dominant a species is in a given forest area
 Vegetation Analysis
• Relative Density – the number of individuals
per area as a percent of the number of
individuals of all species
• Relative Frequency – the percent of inventory
points occupied by species A as a percent of
the occurrence of all species.
– If species A is found in 5 out of 8 sample points,
its relative frequency is 62.5%
End of Discussion