BiologyCode 9700
Biodiversity
What this topic asks you to be able to do
- define what is meant by a niche and by an ecosystem
- explain that biodiversity can be measured at several levels, including: how many different ecosystems and habitats there are and how varied they are; how many species there are and their relative abundance; and the genetic variation found within each species
- account for why random sampling matters when establishing the biodiversity of a given area
- describe and use suitable methods for assessing how organisms are distributed in an area and how abundant they are, limited to belt transects, line transects, frame quadrats and mark-release-recapture with the Lincoln index (you will be given the formula for the Lincoln index; see the Mathematical requirements)
- use Pearson’s linear correlation and Spearman’s rank correlation to analyse how two variables are related, including the effect of biotic and abiotic factors on the distribution and abundance of species (these correlations' formulae are given; see the Mathematical requirements)
- use Simpson’s index of diversity (D) to work out how biodiverse an area is, and state what different values of D indicate (the formula is given; see the Mathematical requirements)