NANFA-- More on Species-Area Relations (SARs)

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus_at_hotmail.com)
Sat, 23 Dec 2000 19:33:17 -0500

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A major field of study within conservation biology is Species-Area
Relations, or how many species in a taxonomic group are found in a given
area (what is the relationship between number of species with increasing
area). This is especially relevant to studying forest ecology. On page 2084
in the 15 December 2000 issue of _Science_, Robert May & Michael Stumpf
review recent work in this field. May has been working with this concept
since the 1970s.

This is the mathematically rigorous end of determining species diversity; if
we check out species number in various streams and ponds, how do we quantify
this diversity and compare it to other, similar systems?

I have to admit, I like J.R.'s method of just looking underwater and
counting species/minute. That's as easy as it gets!

Happy Holidays and all that stuff...

--Bruce Stallsmith
Huntsville, AL

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