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A variety of objective means exist to empirically measure biodiversity. Each measure relates to a particular use of the data, and is likely to be associated with the variety of genes. Biodiversity is commonly measured in terms of taxonomic richness of a geographic area over a time interval. In order to calculate biodiversity, species evenness ...
SAD is a measurement of how common, or rare species are within an ecosystem. [5] This allows researchers to assess how different species are distributed throughout an ecosystem. SAD is one of the most basic measurements in ecology and is used very often, therefore many different methods of measurement and analysis have developed.
Species richness, or biodiversity, increases from the poles to the tropics for a wide variety of terrestrial and marine organisms, often referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient. [1] The latitudinal diversity gradient is one of the most widely recognized patterns in ecology. [1] It has been observed to varying degrees in Earth's past. [2]
In contrast to these "mechanistic" explanations, others assert the need to test whether the pattern is simply the result of a random sampling process. [7] Species–area relationships are often evaluated in conservation science in order to predict extinction rates in the case of habitat loss and habitat fragmentation .
Population ecology is a sub-field of ecology that deals with the dynamics of species populations and how these populations interact with the environment. [15] It is the study of how the population sizes of species living together in groups change over time and space, and was one of the first aspects of ecology to be studied and modelled mathematically.
Consequently, some macroecological and community patterns cannot be fully expressed by alpha and beta diversity. Due to these two reasons, a new way of measuring species turnover, coined Zeta diversity (ζ-diversity), [ 12 ] has been proposed and used to connect all existing incidence-based biodiversity patterns.
Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) is a putative set of parameters intended to be the minimum set of broadly agreed upon necessary and sufficient biodiversity variables for at least national to global monitoring, researching, and forecasting of biodiversity. [1]
The observed species richness is affected not only by the number of individuals but also by the heterogeneity of the sample. If individuals are drawn from different environmental conditions (or different habitats), the species richness of the resulting set can be expected to be higher than if all individuals are drawn from similar environments.