Investigating diversity

Question 1

Easy

Agricultural ecologists investigated the biodiversity of soil microarthropods under two different management systems: conventional tillage and no-till conservation agriculture.

Table 1 shows the abundance of five microarthropod species obtained from a soil core sample in the conventionally tilled field.

Table 1

Microarthropod species	Number of individuals ( $n$ )
Springtail	32
Oribatid mite	16
Predatory mite	8
Symphylan	16
Pauropod	8

State one advantage of using an index of diversity rather than species richness (the number of different species) to compare the biodiversity of these two agricultural soils.

[1]

The ecologists calculated the index of diversity ( $d$ ) using the following equation:

$\sum \left(\frac{n}{N}\right)^2$

where $n$ is the number of individuals of each species and $N$ is the total number of individuals of all species.

Use this equation and the data in Table 1 to calculate the index of diversity for this soil sample.

[2]

Investigating diversity

Question 1

Table 1

Investigating diversity Questions

Investigating diversity

Question 1

Table 1

Investigating diversity Questions