Assignment Biodiversity And Ecosystem Function - 1128 Words

SUS 601: APPLIED ECOLOGY ASSIGNMENT 1- BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION MEKALA KARTHIK How has the challenge of determining how to quantify biodiversity been handled by researchers working on this problem? The maintenance of diversity of living systems is critical for ecosystem functioning, the accelerating pace of global change is threatening its preservation. Quantifying biodiversity on the basis of diversity indices is essential both for developing successful policies to mitigate biodiversity loss (Perrings et al. 2011) and for addressing ecological issues, such as the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functions (Loreau et al. 2001). The challenge of determining ways to quantify biodiversity has been in standardizing†¦show more content†¦The multicomponent aspect of biodiversity means that different diversity components may exhibit different responses in the face of disturbances, and they may also impact key ecosystem functions differently (Wilsey et al. 2005; Mouchet et al. 2010). Consequently, the selection of the diversity components studied, and of the indices related to these components, may strongly impact our perception of both the biodiversity â€Å"patterns† and the role of biodiversity in ecosystem functioning (Loiseau Gaertner, 2015). There is no common method to quantify biodiversity and based on the factors taken into consideration different methods are used to consider all the components affecting the biodiversity. Have researchers consistently used the same metrics to quantify diversity? Researchers have used different metrics to quantify diversity as the availability of data and the direct or indirect relations that components may play a role in assessing diversity. One of the example is already stated above where multicomponent aspect is taken into consideration to measure the diversity in coral reel fishes. Measurement of diversity can be typically categorized in three segments. Traditional diversity measures – Species density, Species richness, diversity indices (Simpson and Shannon-Wiener index). 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