How many species are there? Determining species richness
One of the simplest questions an ecologist can ask about a site is how many species live there. The answer is important for basic researchers and managers alike, but can be deceptively hard to obtain. This exercise introduces students to the issues surrounding the estimation of species richness, and can be completed in a single three-hour lab session. Students will learn to collect data in the field, obtain their own estimates of species richness, and evaluate the underlying assumptions and validity of these estimates. The exercise is written for estimating the species richness of trees in forests but could easily be adapted for other plant or animal communities. TIEE
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| Resource Group | TIEE |
| Resource Group Link | https://ecoed.esa.org/index.php?P=SearchResults&F46=TIEE |
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| General Biology Core Concepts | |
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| General Biology Competencies | |
| Life science discipline (subject) | |
| Keywords | Species diversity, species richness, biodiversity, community ecology, plant ecology, forest ecology, scale, sample, estimate, TIEE |
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| Pedagogical Use Description | In the field, students will learn to identify common trees. Afterwards, they will produce a short report that shows their calculations and resulting estimates of species richness, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these estimates based on general principles and their own field observations. SETTING This lab was originally designed for estimating species richness of eastern deciduous forest trees, during the growing season. It can be adapted easily to other taxa or environments, with appropriate changes to sampling methods and materials. COURSE CONTEXT This experiment has been used successfully in an upper-level undergraduate and graduate ecology lab course. A simplified version of this lab could also be utilized in lower level biology, ecology, or conservation courses. We typically have four to six lab sections of 10-14 students each, with each section split into teams of three or four students. Data collected during the field portion of the exercise are pooled across all teams by the instructor, and shared with the entire class through email or the class website. Each student must analyze both the data collected by his or her own team and by the entire lab section, estimate species richness from a smaller and larger data set, and compare their values. |
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| Url | http://www.esa.org/tiee/vol/v10/experiments/park/abstract.html |
| Full Name of Primary Author | Isaac W. Park |
| Primary Author Controlled Name | |
| Primary Author Affiliation | Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee |
| Primary Author email | iwpark@uwm.edu |
| Secondary Author Name(s) | David W. Tonkyn |
| Secondary Author Affiliation(s) | Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University |
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| Submitter Name | Teresa Mourad |
| Submitter Email | teresa@esa.org |
| Rights | Authors hold copyright |
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| Drought and Water Ecosystem Services Collection | Off |
| Conservation Targets Under Global Change Collection | Off |
| Big Data Collection | Off |
| Editors Choice | No |
| Resource Status | |
| Date Of Record Submission | 2015-01-21 |
| I Agree to EcoEdDL's Copyright Policy & Terms of Use | No |
| Date Of Record Release | 2015-01-21 14:09:39 |
| Last Modified By Id |
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| Date Last Modified | 2018-07-30 11:24:23 |
| Release Flag | Published |
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