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What is biodiversity?
Encompasses all of the species present in the world, all the ecosystems to which those species belong and all of the interactions between those species.
What is Species Richness?
The number of species in a given area. It becomes more accurate as more samples are taken as shown by species accumulation curve.
What is a community?
Assemblage of different populations that live together in a defined area
What is a quadrat?
A square frame used for sampling in field work.
What is a transect line?
A line across a community, used for sampling.
What is Species Distrubution?
How individuals in a population are spaced out across the range of the population
What is Species Abundance?
A measure of how many organisms are found in a given area
What is genetic diversity?
The number of different alleles possessed by a species
What is Simpson's Diversity Index?
A measure of how many organisms are found in a given area. Measure of diversity between similar ecosystems that takes species richness and abundance into accoun
What is species diversity?
The number of different species present in a particular ecosystem
What is ecosystem diversity?
The variety of ecosystems within a given region or biome.
What is a biome?
A group of ecosystems with similar climates and organisms and which extend over a large area. Can be terrestrial, marine or freshwater
What is percentage cover?
A measurement of the proportion of an area covered by an organism.
What is relative abundance?
A measure of the number of individuals of a particular species in relation to the total number of individuals of all species in that area.
What is a microhabitat?
A very small specialised part of a habitat, such as the space under a rock.
What are abiotic factors?
Non-living components of an ecosystem e.g. climate, substrate, temperature, salinity, light intensity, nitrogen content in soil, pH, oxygen, wind speed
