Learning Targets“I Can…”

• Measure biodiversity in a simulated grassland habitat

• Take random samples to “count” species within a habitat

• Create and interpret a species accumulation graph to illustrate the species richness of a habitat.

Measuring Biodiversity

Ecosystem Diversity

• Different types of plants and animals live in different habitats

• To measure the biodiversity of an ecosystem, we will use the concept of species richness, which is the number of species in a given area

Species Richness

• When measuring species diversity, the first few samples taken will have a lot of common and abundant species

• As more samples are collected, there be fewer and fewer new species found, until eventually, all species have been counted

Species Richness Curve

Species Richness

We can still find morespecies pretty easily!

It will take a lot of effort to find more species.

Measuring Species Diversity

• Although not completely accurate, most of an ecosystem’s biodiversity can be measured by taking a only a few random samples

ResultsSAMPLE TRIAL 1 TRIAL 2 TRIAL 3 ACCUMULATION OF

HOW MANY NEW SPECIES YOU FOUND

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Results

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

2

4

6

8

10

12Species Accumulation Curve of Simulated Grassland

Number of Random Samples

Number of Species Found

References

• http://www.denniskalma.com/river/biodiversitymeasurement.html

• http://gapanalysis.usgs.gov/species/reptile-species-richness/