Species Diversity Lab

Name: ______

Period: ______

Species Diversity Lab

~ a study of the parking lot life zone ~

BACKGROUND

The diversity of species present in an ecosystem can be used as one gauge of the health of an ecosystem. Species richness is a measure of the number of different species present in an ecosystem, while species evenness measures the relative abundance of the various populations present in an ecosystem. In an ecological survey designed to measure species diversity, a wildlife biologist might determine the number of individuals of each species present in an area, and then calculate a "diversity index" for the area. Comparison of the diversity index with that of other areas provides insights into the species diversity and the health of the ecosystem.

In this activity your "ecosystem" will be the school parking lot, and the "species" will be the different car colors. As a class, we will be comparing the species diversity of the 49th and 50th parking lots. The diversity index we will use is the Simpson Diversity Index. After determining the number of each species (car), in each parking lot, the Simpson Diversity Index will be calculated separately for the 49th lot and the 50th lot. A rich ecosystem with high species diversity has a large value for the Simpson Diversity Index (D), while an ecosystem with little diversity has a low D. You can use a calculator for these equations.

Use Simpson’s Diversity Index to determine the diversity of the parking lot.

D = Diversity Index

N = total number of organisms of all species found

n = number of individuals of a particular species

Pre-lab Questions—Write out and answer the following question

1. Identify which parking lot you expect to be the most diverse, and defend your choice.

______

Post-lab Questions

1. Identify the parking lot that was the most diverse. Based on your observations during the lab, explain why your prediction in question #1 of the pre-lab was supported or not supported.

2. List the single most abundant species in each set of data, and write a plausible explanation to explain why these are the most abundant species.

3. Which parking lot ecosystem demonstrates a higher degree of ecological stability? Explain.

4. If you conducted this lab in a shopping mall parking lot, predict whether the Simpson Diversity Index would be high or low, and how it would compare to the school parking lots.

5. What is the importance of species diversity? What if there was a “disease” that killed off all of the Silver/Grey, Black, and White Cars? What might happen to the rest of the population?

Table 1: Data collected for Color in the 49th parking lot.

Species / n / n-1 / n(n-1)
EX: Black / 3 / 2 / 6
Red/Maroon/Pink / 1
Black / 2
Silver/Grey / 3
Champagne/Tan/Gold / 4
White / 5
Blue / 6
Green/Teal / 7
Yellow / 8
Orange / 9
Purple / 10
Brown / 11
TOTALS / N = / ∑ n(n-1) =

N = _____ N-1 = _____ N(N-1) = _____ D= ______= ______

Table 2: Data collected for Color in the 50th parking lot.

N = _____ N-1 = _____ N(N-1) = _____ D= ______= ______