Any measure of species diversity, by itself, does not convey much information; we appreciate its significance only when we compare with any other measure. Measures of species diversity can be divided into three categories (Magurran, 1988). These are: (i) Species richness indices, (ii) Species abundance models, and (iii) Species proportional abundance based indices Species Richness Indices: Species richness, as measure [...]
The following varieties of ecological diversity are recognized (Singh, 2002, Singh and Kumar 2003). Species Diversity: The number of species that occurs in a particular area is called its species richness (Donovan and Welden, 2002). It means the species richness in any habitat and is common currency of the study of biodiversity. Species richness index is essentially a measure of [...]
The geological history of biodiversity is about 3.5 to 4 billion years old (Table 7.2). The first appearance of multi-cellular organisms was perhaps a milestone in the history of biodiversity which, did not diversify until about 600 million years ago (Mya). In fact, by the end of the Cambrian we find that almost all of today's major animal phyla are [...]