Diversity Paper (untitled)

Student paper, EEB 4839, 2010Species diversity, the number of species present in a community, is relatively easy to quantify but can be very difficult to explain. Mostly this is because through various sampling methods you can determine how many individuals of which species are present in an area. But to determine why those species are there in those proportions you need to know many details of the species and individual needs as well as how the factors interrelate. Three major factors thought to influence patterns of diversity are the physical structure of the habitat (vegetation, objects, soil), the climate and climatic stability of the habitat, and the productivity of the habitat as a whole and of individual resources (MacArthur, 1972). Our experiment examined the small mammal communities of various sites in both forest and prairie habitats. We wanted to determine which habitat type has greater species diversity and whether there are species present in both habitats