Biological diversity

 

Area contains comparatively higher diversity of ecosystems, habitats, communities, or species, or has higher genetic diversity.

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Global Patterns of Biodiversity — by Edward Vanden Berghe — last modified Sep 04, 2009 03:29 PM

Diversity is a function of two factors: number of species (Species Richness) and number of specimens belonging to these species (Evenness). Several indices measuring diversity have been proposed, giving more or less weight to either of these two factors. To illustrate global patterns of biodiversity, Hurlbert’s index, for a sample size of 50 specimens, is calculated on the OBIS data holdings.

Prediction of Biodiversity - Richness and Evenness — by Piers Dunstan — last modified Sep 04, 2009 08:15 PM

Patterns in biodiversity can be illustrated by variation in the number of species (richness) and whether these species are evenly distributed or dominated by a minority (evenness). Combining these two properties of biodiversity leads to the identification of uncommon communities that are deserving of greater protection. In this application we use a statistically rigorous analysis of species ranks combined with physical samples to predict patterns in biodiversity through the physical space. This extends our information from known biological samples to the broader environment, with measured uncertainty.

Overlap between hotspots of marine mammal biodiversity and global seamount distributions — by Kaschner, K., J. Ready, E. Agbayani, P. Eastwood, T. Rees, K. Reyes, J. Rius & R. Froese — last modified Sep 09, 2009 01:41 PM

AquaMaps is a species distribution model available as an online web service that generates standardized range maps and the relative probability of occurrence within that range for currently more than 9000 marine species from available point occurrences and other types of habitat usage information (Kaschner et al, 2006, Ready et al, accepted). By overlaying AquaMaps predictions for a subset of individual species (namely 115 marine mammals), we produced a global map of biodiversity patterns that shows the co-occurrence of predicted hotspots of marine mammal species richness and off-shore seamounts.