LESSON 10: SPECIES AND POPULATIONS World population from 500CE to 2150, based on UN (2004) [1] projections and U.S. census information [2] , which are both applications of demography. No matter how much data is collected, unknown variables remain, so there are alternate possiblities for the future world population. Species and populations are probably the two most commonly used ecology terms, but they are often difficult concepts to grasp. Throughout this chapter, they will be discussed in detail, expanding on the definitions from previous chapters and explaining why there are no universally acceptable definitions. Factors influencing population growth and ways to measure and predict population growth will also be subjects of specific focus. Populations can be affected by so many factors that it is almost impossible to take every variable into account. Demography is the statistical study of the age structure of a population, and it can be used in research to determine...
LESSON 9: SPECIES RICHNESS AND DIVERSITY Species Diversity Introduction Species Richness ( s ) is a relative term that refers to the number of species in a community, and is directly associated with measuring the diversity of species in a given area. A related term, evenness (E), is another dimension of diversity that defines the number of individuals from each species in the same area. Together, these terms have been used to describe species diversity patterns on Earth. There are several hypotheses that have been proposed to explain species diversity patterns. Many of these hypotheses are based upon the idea that species are more diverse near the equator than near the poles. In other words, there is a recognized latitudinal gradient of species diversity on Earth. The hypotheses that support this latitudinal gradient can be divided into two groups: abiotic and biotic. The biotic hypotheses are those that explain species diversity patterns with relation to...