Diversity Lab Write-Up
Introduction: Biodiversity is the measure of the variety of the organisms in an ecosystem. This variety can be between species, within species, and between ecosystems, but in this lab, only the variety between species will be discussed to quantify the biodiversity of the target ecosystem. Biodiversity can be quantified by two main aspects which are species richness, and species eveness. Species richness is the number of species observed per sample of an ecosystem, and if there are a higher amount of different species within one sample of an ecosystem, then that sample is referred to as being more rich. Species richness does not take into account the amount of the species, just that there are multiple species. For example, …show more content…
The data could also be recorded in a database, and referenced again later in time to talk about if an ecosystem is being impacted in some way, or benefitting from some circumstance, by looking at if the values go up or down, depending on which index is used for biodiversity calculations. Other reasons the result that this ecosystem has a good degree of biodiversity could have arisen, is if maybe the same species were counted as different species. Since the species being recorded in this experiment were not formally identified and distinguished as different species, there is a possibility that plants that are within the same species, were recorded as different species. This would make the values that were calculated, incorrect due to the fact that if there are more species in an ecosystem, the richness and eveness of that ecosystem will be effected. Along with this, the species could have been incorrectly counted. It is hard to distinguish just using one's eyes to determine each single entity, and some grasses that shared the same roots, could have in fact been counted twice, or even multiple times. This was a problem that was also present while counting other species of plants, and misrepresenting the amount of each species, can cause gross variations in the biodiversity …show more content…
This situation has been documented in many scientific journals, such as one by Xenopoulos et al.," In rivers with reduced discharge, up to 75% (quartile range 4-22%) of local fish biodiversity would be headed toward extinction by 2070 because of combined changes in climate and water consumption, (Xenopoulos et al., 2005). Another paper by Verones et al., explains that when humans take water from wetlands, or convert wetlands into places where humans can inhabit, that the loss of water from these wetlands effect the animals there severely, and in particular, seem to severely hurt waterbirds," The total impact from water consumption in Kenya was 67 times larger than in The Netherlands, due to larger species richness and species' vulnerability in Kenya, as well as more arid conditions and larger amounts of water consumed, (Verones et al., 2013). So from the results of both of these experiments, it can be seen that water plays a large role in biodiversity, and if those sources of water are depleted, than the biodiversity in close proximity to those bodies of water is also negatively
Introduction: Biodiversity is the measure of the variety of the organisms in an ecosystem. This variety can be between species, within species, and between ecosystems, but in this lab, only the variety between species will be discussed to quantify the biodiversity of the target ecosystem. Biodiversity can be quantified by two main aspects which are species richness, and species eveness. Species richness is the number of species observed per sample of an ecosystem, and if there are a higher amount of different species within one sample of an ecosystem, then that sample is referred to as being more rich. Species richness does not take into account the amount of the species, just that there are multiple species. For example, …show more content…
The data could also be recorded in a database, and referenced again later in time to talk about if an ecosystem is being impacted in some way, or benefitting from some circumstance, by looking at if the values go up or down, depending on which index is used for biodiversity calculations. Other reasons the result that this ecosystem has a good degree of biodiversity could have arisen, is if maybe the same species were counted as different species. Since the species being recorded in this experiment were not formally identified and distinguished as different species, there is a possibility that plants that are within the same species, were recorded as different species. This would make the values that were calculated, incorrect due to the fact that if there are more species in an ecosystem, the richness and eveness of that ecosystem will be effected. Along with this, the species could have been incorrectly counted. It is hard to distinguish just using one's eyes to determine each single entity, and some grasses that shared the same roots, could have in fact been counted twice, or even multiple times. This was a problem that was also present while counting other species of plants, and misrepresenting the amount of each species, can cause gross variations in the biodiversity …show more content…
This situation has been documented in many scientific journals, such as one by Xenopoulos et al.," In rivers with reduced discharge, up to 75% (quartile range 4-22%) of local fish biodiversity would be headed toward extinction by 2070 because of combined changes in climate and water consumption, (Xenopoulos et al., 2005). Another paper by Verones et al., explains that when humans take water from wetlands, or convert wetlands into places where humans can inhabit, that the loss of water from these wetlands effect the animals there severely, and in particular, seem to severely hurt waterbirds," The total impact from water consumption in Kenya was 67 times larger than in The Netherlands, due to larger species richness and species' vulnerability in Kenya, as well as more arid conditions and larger amounts of water consumed, (Verones et al., 2013). So from the results of both of these experiments, it can be seen that water plays a large role in biodiversity, and if those sources of water are depleted, than the biodiversity in close proximity to those bodies of water is also negatively