BIOLOGY 197FH Lecture 20: Lecture 20
25 Apr 2016
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Document Summary
A biological community is an assemblage of populations of various species living close enough for potential interaction. Community complexity: community interactions are complex and challenging to uncover. Leafcutter ants get leaves, give to other worker ants, give to fungi, fungi breaks plant down into sugars, ants eat sugar. Bacteria living on ants use antibiotics to control environment. Richness: total number of species in the community (type, genus, family, etc) Relative abundance: the proportion of each species to the total individuals. Shannon diversity index: one of the tools used to quantitatively compare the diversity of different communities across time and space. H = -[(palnpa) + (pblnpb) + + (pzlnpz)] a, b, etc. are the species in the community p is the relative abundance of each species ln is the natural log. Shannon equitability index: measures how close to equal the species are i. One goal of community ecology is to measure the impact of disturbances on communities.
