Abstract

How much biodiversity we see, such as the number of bird species recorded in a wetland, increases both as a larger area is surveyed, and as the same area is surveyed for a longer time. [...] if we were to watch the same lake over several years, we would find that some new species would colonize, others would vanish from the area, and there would be occasional unexpected species appearing, perhaps diverted away from their normal migration route by unusual weather conditions. In essence, the approaches either describe the entire distribution of species abundance (Figure [figure omitted; refer to PDF] ), or provide some metric that quantifies the richness of the sample or assemblage (richness being the number of species present), or develop a statistic that takes account of the evenness of the species abundances.\n Roger Deakin, writing about the loss of a small spinney in his 2008 book Notes from Walnut Tree Farm, describes how the bulldozed mud 'smothered all the wild flowers, hibernating bumblebees etc., especially an extensive bed of violets that grew, with the assertive dog's mercury and lords and ladies, under the shade of the trees'.

Details

Title
Q&A: What is biodiversity?
Author
Magurran, Anne E
Pages
145
Publication year
2010
Publication date
2010
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
17417007
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
902265188
Copyright
© 2010 Magurran; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.