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Week 7: Measuring Spatial Biodiversity Patterns

Core Questions

  • What do richness, Shannon diversity, Simpson diversity, endemism, and rarity measure?
  • How do alpha, beta, and gamma diversity differ?
  • How do grid grain and spatial aggregation change biodiversity surfaces?

Concepts

  • Species richness.
  • Shannon and Simpson diversity.
  • Endemism, weighted endemism, corrected weighted endemism, and rarity.
  • Alpha, beta, and gamma diversity.
  • Moving-window diversity.
  • Spatial aggregation and scale sensitivity.
  • Community genetic diversity as an advanced extension.

Python Tools

  • pandas.
  • NumPy.
  • GeoPandas.
  • scipy.
  • matplotlib.

Applied Lab

Students aggregate species observations to a grid, calculate spatial biodiversity metrics, and create richness, diversity, endemism, and rarity maps.

Deliverable

Submit biodiversity maps at multiple grains with a short interpretation of scale sensitivity and metric choice.