Question

Im trying to figure out how to draw this

Now, in the innermost circle (0.1 m radius), assume we found 8 species of plant. In the second smallest circle, we found 10 species. In the third smallest circle, we found 13 species. In the largest circle, we found 14 species. Note that when moving from the smallest circle to the next-smallest circle, we did NOT find 10 additional species...The 10 species in the second smallest circle includes the 8 found in the smallest circle (i.e. only 2 additional species were found when going from the smallest to the second smallest area

. Draw a graph of the data, with AREA as the x-axis and SPECIES as the y-axis. I want to see the graph drawn BY HAND. It doesn’t have to be on graph paper, and it doesn’t have to be beautiful, but the points should align with the data.

2. Describe the shape of the trend in your own words. You can say the name of this particular shape, but I want more too. For instance, explain how you would predict the number of species would increase as you continue to broaden the area surveyed.

3. Answer this question: How would you expect diversity of habitat to influence the number of species (i.e. biodiversity)?

Answer 1

1.] Shown in image below:

2.] The shape of the above graphical illustration shows a rough s-shaped curve (line graph) with increase in slope; which indicates that the number of species (here, plant species) grows gradually with the increase in area coverage.

The number of species is directly proportional to the coverage of area. When we are moving from the smallest circle to the next smaller one and so on, that is, with the area increase, we can observe the gradual increase of the number of plant species. This can be explained by instance, that a broaden area enables species to develop a tendency to inbuilt its own habitat, undisturbed or even isolated from a seperate species group. This tendency could have arisen from the behaviour of speciation, as species of one category have unique characteristics, which can be developmental or physiological. Reproductive behaviour would have been another cause.

Moreover, with the increase in area, the environmental attributes (both living and non-living say, soil, groundwater, breeze, organisms, etc) changes, that enables other species of adaptive features of that environment to grow and develop in that particular suitable area.

3.] The species richness of an area is directly related to the habitat diversity effect. Infact the species-area curve drawn in Q1 is co-related to habitat diversity.

Many species show limited adaptability to broad physiological conditions / habitats; so dispersion rate in them is very slow. Thus they tends to achieve a particular habitat to continue their life- processes. In other words, due to different physical and chemical characteristics of habitats ( say, in broader view- mountain, forest, desert, mainland, coastal area, etc; and in smaller view - pond, ground, small jungles, etc) , different sets of species (or, biodiversity) of that adaptive features inhabitat in that particular habitat. For example, our local surroundings is an ideal example of habitat diversity with different species residing in it ; we see different species cohabitate together, despite being in their own habitat. Say, we humans are domintaing the land, with different pets and other domestic animals living with us, the fishes and planktons residing in the ponds, different species of plants and trees growing in our locals, and much more.