REVIEW PPT ON BIODIVERSITY QUANTIFICATION..... SUBMITTED TO DR. RAVINDRA PRASAD, ASST. PROFESSOR, BANARAS HINDU UNIVERSITY, MIRZAPUR

1. Banaras hindu university
BIODIVERSITY QUANTIFICATION
Department Of Genetics And Plant Breeding
Presented by
EAMANI SIVASURYA TEJA
I.D- 18430PLB008
M.Sc.(Ag) P.B.T 1st year
Submitted to
Dr. Ravindra Prasad,
Asst. Professor,
M.Sc.(Ag) Plant Biotechnology.
Rajiv Gandhi South Campus, Barkachha .

2. CONTENT
1. Definition of Biodiversity
2. Methods to measure Biodiversity
3. Measuring Biodiversity
4. Biodiversity and Genetics
5. Species Richness
6. Species Evenness
7. Simpson’s Index
8. Taxonomic methods used in quantifying biodiversity
9. Phylogenic Species Concept
10. Biological Species Concept
11. Evolutionary Species Concept
12. Problems
Conclusion and references………

3. Definition of Biodiversity
The sum of all biotic variation from the level of
genes to ecosystems
 The number, variety, and variability of living
organisms in a quantified area.

4. Criteria to measure Biodiversity:
 Species Richness
 Species Evenness
 Disparity
 Species Rarity
 Genetic Variability

5. Measuring Biodiversity:
Species Richness:
The total number of given species in
a quantified area. This is a simple count of the species in
Community. Each species contributes One count to the
total regardless of whether the species population is
one (or) one million.
Species Evenness:
Evenness is a measure of the relative
abundance of the different species making up the richness
of the area.
Evenness can be calculated as:
Relative abundance = Number of individuals of a species
total number of individuals

6. Biodiversity and Genetics:
Genetic Variability:
Each population of a species contributes to
additional biodiversity due to variations between genes.
Source : https://www.google.co.in/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact

7. Species Richness:
www.nature.com/cgi-taf

8. Taxonomic methods used in relation to quantifying
biodiversity:
Phylogenic Species Concept
Biological Species Concept
Evolutionary Species Concept
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9. Phylogenic Species Concept:
Taxa are separate species if they can be diagnosed as distinct
either by phenotypic or genotypic information.
Leads to an increase in the number of species.
Does not allow for natural variations within populations to be
listed as separate species.



Evolutionary Species Concept:
Groups organisms together using an ancestral/descendant
relationship that is traceable in the fossil record
Focuses on studying the morphological features of closely
related organisms.
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

10. Biological Species Concept:
Groups of organisms that can interbreed freely under natural
conditions.
Most commonly used of the three.


Evolutionary Species Concept:
Groups organisms together using an ancestral/descendant
relationship that is traceable in the fossil record.
Focuses on studying the morphological features of
closely related organisms.



11. Simpson’s Index
Simpson’s Index is a calculation done by ecologists
that is a measure of diversity which takes into account
both richness and evenness of species.
n = the total number of organisms of a particular
species
N = the total number of organisms of all species

12. Simpson’s Index of Diversity
The value of D ranges between 0 and 1.
With this index, 0 represents infinite
diversity and 1 represents no diversity.
– The greater the value of D, the lower the
diversity.
– The less the value of D, the higher the
diversity.

13. Using Simpson’s index to measure biodiversity – a worked example
It may be easier to understand the use of Simpson’s index with the following example. Consider
three communities, each made up of a total of 100 organisms, drawn from combinations of ten
species, Ato J.
Community 1 has the highest diversity. It has the joint highest species richness (10) and each species has
a similar relative abundance. Community 2 has the same species richness as community 1, but is
dominated by one species (A) so that the diversity of this community is lower than in community 1.
Community 3 has a lower diversity than community 1, due to its lower species richness.
Table 1 Species composition of three different communities.
Species Community
1
Community
2
Community
3
A 10 72 35
B 9 6 34
C 11 3 31
D 10 3 0
E 8 1 0
F 12 3 0
G 10 4 0
H 11 3 0
I 10 2 0
J 9 3 0
Total 100 100 100

14. The formula for calculating Simpson’s index is:
D 
nini 1
NN1
Where ,
N = the total number of all organisms
ni = the numbers of individuals of each individual species
The lower the value of D, the greater is the species diversity. Take
for example community 1 in the table 1 above. The values of (n-1) and ni(n-1) in the computation
of D are shown in table 2 opposite.

17. 1 no diversity
0.9 extremely low diversity
0.8 very low diversity
0.7 low diversity
0.6 moderate-low diversity
0.5 moderate diversity
0.4 moderate-high diversity
0.3 high diversity
0.2 very high diversity
0.1 extremely high diversity
0 infinite diversity

18.  Measuring biodiversity is ultimately a complex process involving
many facets.
 Various applications of speciesconcepts
either divide and/or group organisms together.
 Biodiversity can’t be reduced to asingle number.
 Studying biodiversity using allecosystem processes at all scales.
 In attempting to preserve biodiversitywe often are ‘speciesists’
favoring the cute and popular species.
Problems:

19.  Generally, areas of higher productivity correlate
with increases in biodiversity.
 Biodiversity is also measured using the
genetic variability of different populations
of a single species.
 Biodiversity can’t be reduced to a single
number, thus creating complications
when comparing biodiversity in different ecosystems.
 The importance of biodiversity is
accepted by some and disregarded by many
others.
Conclusion:

20. 
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Purvis, Andy. Hector, Andy. May 2000. Getting the Measure of Biodiversity. Nature
Magazine. Vol.405 pgs 212-219. Berkshire, United Kingdom.www.nature.com/cgi-taf
Wildland Invasive Species Team. July 2002.Vernal, UT. Retrieved on 10-26-02
http://tncweeds.ucdavis.edu/photos
Macdonald, Glen. 2003. Biogeography; Introduction to Space, Time, and Life. New York.
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Sartore, Joel. 2002. National Geographic Society. Retreived
10-20-02 http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/bestwildlife/ wallpaper13.html
Dr. Robert Rothman: Darwin’s Finches. Retrieved on 10-18-02.
http://www.rit.edu/~rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch
 Paul Walker. Balam Na Project. Rainforest Preserve. 8-28-02
http://www.rainforest.org/projects/balamna/balamna.html
 Paul Williams, 2002 ”Biodiversity: Measuring the variety of nature and selecting the priority
areas for conservation.” London, 10/23/02, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/science/projects/worldmap/
 Bryant,PeterJ.,2001, “Biodiversity and Conservation: A Hypertext book”. Irvine,10/23/02,
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/Titlpage.htm#Table%20of%20contents
 Dooley, Laura Lee S., 1982-2002, “Biodiversity and Protected Areas”, Washington D.C.,
10/23/03, http://www.wri.org/biodiv/
Wikipedia.