Biological Diversity (Theories, Measures and Data sampling techniques)

In this module we will explore the evolution of biodiversity. In particular we will understand what is the web of life and how species interact to coexist.Moreover, we will understand the main processes that allow the evolution of biodiversity and how it is structured and structures itself. Finally, we will review the distribution patterns of biodiversity in macroscale.

After having analysed the distribution of biodiversity in macroscale in the previous module we will see it in microscale. Then I will explain you the importance of biodiversity: first we will see what are the effect of anthropogenic impacts, and second we will see why biodiversity is important for us. We will try to answer the important question about what are the causes of biodiversity decline and we will analyse the effect of climate change on species diversity, ecosystems and the whole planet. With a global perspective we will explore the implication for biodiversity of the Gaia theory.

In this module we will move from a theoretical discussion to a more practical point of view and we will see hot to analyse and measure biodiversity. I will show you some sampling techniques and how to avoid the most common sampling errors. We will talk about the relevant problem of pseudoreplication. Then I will show you some metrics to estimate α and β –diversity and how to use them in particular cases and specific situations.

In this module we will talk about the most common species-abundance distribution models and I will show you how to compare different communities and samples in order to achieve a quantitative and statistical measure of the changes in biological diversity due to treatments. I will explain some Evenness measures and how to represent them in form of curves of biodiversity. This will help to discriminate communities’ diversity and to better analyse the anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity.