1. Learning Targets “I Can…”
Measure biodiversity in a simulated grassland habitat
Take random samples to “count” species within a habitat
Create and interpret a species accumulation graph to illustrate the species richness of a habitat.

2. Measuring Biodiversity

3. Ecosystem Diversity
Different types of plants and animals live in different habitats
To measure the biodiversity of an ecosystem, we will use the concept of species richness, which is the number of species in a given area

5. Species Richness
When measuring species diversity, the first few samples taken will have a lot of common and abundant species
As more samples are collected, there be fewer and fewer new species found, until eventually, all species have been counted

6. Species Richness Curve

7. Species Richness It will take a lot of effort to find more species.
We can still find more
species pretty easily!

8. Measuring Species Diversity
Although not completely accurate, most of an ecosystem’s biodiversity can be measured by taking a only a few random samples

9. ACCUMULATION OF HOW MANY NEW SPECIES YOU FOUND
Results
SAMPLE
TRIAL 1
TRIAL 2
TRIAL 3
ACCUMULATION OF HOW MANY NEW SPECIES YOU FOUND 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

10. Results

11. References