Biodiversity

This module will focus on the measurement of biodiversity key concepts such as species abundance distributions. We will review historical explanations for the generation and maintenance of biodiversity and discuss the contemporary debates over neutral theory, biodiversity and ecosystem function, and the dilution effect.

Date

Topic and Activity

Readings and homework

Tuesday Sept 21

Introduction to module and Biodiversity

Read prior to class and come ready to discuss:

Magurran 2004

HW for next time: Choose one of the following papers to read and be prepared with one slide to give a five-minute explanation of the key idea in the selected paper.

 

  1. Arrhenius, O. 1921. “Species and area.” Journal of Ecology 9:95-99.
  2. Burnham, K.P., Overton, W.S. 1978. Estimation of the size of a closed population when capture probabilities vary among animals. Biometrika 65:625-633.
  3. Chao, A. 1981. On estimating the probability of discovering a new species. Annals of Statistics 9: 1339-1342.
  4. Chao, A. 1984. Nonparametric estimation of the number of classes in a population. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 11: 265-270.
  5. Costello, M.J., R.M. May, and N.E. Stork. 2013. Can we name Earth's species before they go extinct? Science 339:413-416.
  6. Diserud, O.H. & S. Engen. “A general and dynamic species abundance model, embracing the lognormal and gamma models.” American Naturalist 155:497-511.
  7. Fisher, R.A., A.S. Corbet, and C.B. Williams. 1943. “The relation between the number of species and the number of individuals in a random sample of an animal population.” Journal of Animal Ecology 12:42-58.
  8. Good, I.J. 1953. The population frequencies of species and the estimation of population parameters. Biometrika 40:237-264.
  9. Hurlbert, S.H. 1971. “The nonconcept of species diversity: a critique and alternative parameters.” Ecology 52(4):577-586.
  10. Hutcheson, K. 1970. “A test for comparing diversities based on the Shannon formula.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 29:151-154.
  11. Hutchinson, G.E. 1959. “Homage to Santa Rosalia, or why are there so many kinds of animals?” American Naturalist 93:145-159.
  12. Lewontin, R.C. 1969. “The meaning of stability.” In Woodwell and Smith, eds. Diversity and Stability in Ecological Systems. Brookhaven National Laboratory.
  13. Lewontin, R.C. 1972. “The apportionment of human diversity.” Evolutionary Biology 6.
  14. Lloyd, M. & R.J. Ghelardi. 1964. “A table for calculating the ‘equitability’ component of species diversity.” Journal of Animal Ecology 33:217-225.
  15. Lloyd, M., J.H. Zar, and J.R. Karr. 1968. “On the calculation of information-theoretical measures of diversity.” American Midland Naturalist 79:257-272.
  16. Loreau, M., and A. Hector. 2001. “Partitioning selection and complementarity in biodiversity experiments.” Nature 412:72-76.
  17. MacArthur, R.H. 1965. “Patterns of species diversity.” Biological Reviews 40:510-533.
  18. May, R.M. 1994. “Conceptual aspects of the quantification of the extent of biological diversity.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 345:13-20.
  19. McIntosh, R.P. 1967. “An index of diversity and the relation of certain concepts to diversity.” Ecology 48:392-404.
  20. Patil, G.P. and C. Taillie. 1982. “Diversity as a concept and its measurement.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 33:548-567.
  21. Peet, R.K. 1975. “Relative diversity indices.” Ecology 56:496-498.
  22. Pielou, E.C. 1966a. “The measurement of diversity in different types of biological collection.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 13:131-144.
  23. Pielou, E.C. 1966c. “Species-diversity and pattern-diversity in the study of ecological succession.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 10:370-383.
  24. Preston, F.W. 1948. “The commonness and rarity of species.” Ecology 29:254-283.
  25. Rosenzweig, M.L. 1995. Species Diversity in Space and Time. Cambridge University Press.
  26. Simpson, E.H. 1949. Measurement of diversity. Nature 163:688.
  27. Soberon, J.M., Lorente, J.B. 1993. The use of species accumulation functions for prediction of species richness. Conservation Biology 7:480-488.
  28. Wang, J.P. 2010. Estimating the species richness by a Poisson-compound Gamma model. Biometrika 97:727-740.
  29. Weaver, W. 1948. “Probability, rarity, interest and surprise.” Scientific Monthly 67:390-392.
  30. Whittaker, R.H. 1972. “Evolution and measurement of species diversity.” Taxon 21:213-251.

Thursday Sept 23

Paper presentations and discussion

Tuesday Sept 28

Estimating Species Richness

 

 

Read prior to class and be ready to discuss

Gotelli and Colwell

Thursday Sept 30

Neutral Theory

Read prior to class and be ready to discuss

Rosindell et al. 2011

Tuesday Oct 5

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function

Read prior to class and be ready to discuss

Tilman et al. 2014

Hagan et al. 2021

Thursday Oct 7

The Dilution Effect

Read prior to class and be ready to discuss

Rohr et al. 2020