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Student

Activity 4.11 Exploring biodiversity

Purpose

To consider how biodiversity can be measured.

Measuring biodiversity
Measures of species richness are normally used to talk about biodiversity. In this activity you
investigate the plant biodiversity of hedges and you also compare the biodiversity of six sites on
Pocklington Beck using species richness and species evenness. There are other measures of
biodiversity and you can compare the values of biodiversity given by three different measures and
evaluate them.
Biodiversity and dating hedges
In Britain, fields are often bounded by hedges, which can be hundreds or even thousands of years
old. From the 1400s, many areas of open common land were enclosed by hedges, and brought under
individual ownership. The process accelerated during the 18th and 19th Centuries, when many
enclosure plans were enforced through parliamentary act.
In the 1960s and 70s, concern about the loss of hedges through agricultural intensification prompted
government scientists to study hedges. They chose hedges whose ages were known from historical
records. They then counted the number of shrub species present in the hedges and plotted a graph of
their results (see Figure 1). In order to make fair comparisons, the scientists counted the number of
shrub species in a fixed length 30 yards of hedge.

From: Hedges, E Pollard, MD Hooper and NW Moore 1974 William Collins and Sons, p80.

A graph to show hedge age and the number of shrub and tree species in 30 yard lengths.
The relative frequency of hedges in a class are shown by the size of the circle. 277 hedges were
sampled in total.
Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

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Activity 4.11 Exploring biodiversity

Student

Q1 Describe any correlation shown by the data in Figure 1.

Q2 Suggest possible reasons why older hedges have more shrub species than younger hedges.
Q3 Explain whether you would expect older hedges to also have more insect biodiversity.

Date your own hedge

Procedure

Select one or two hedges near your school, college or home to study. Choose a parish boundary
hedge if you can. Find a representative 30 yard section of your hedge. It is sufficient to measure
this by striding out 30 long paces. Do not choose a section near a field corner, wood or other major
feature. A section somewhere in the middle of a long stretch is best.
Identify all the shrub and tree species in your 30-yard section. If you have time measure several 30yard lengths so you can take an average. You may need an identification guide to help you identify
the shrubs and trees in your hedge. The following are the shrub species you are most likely to find:
Hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, elder, dog rose, field rose, ash, oak, field maple, holly, privet,
buckthorn, dogwood, sycamore, elm, crab apple, gorse.
Include trees of all sizes, but do not count bramble, honeysuckle or any herbaceous plants such as
nettles and hogweed.
If you are unable to identify all the shrubs on the spot, collect a small twig (with leaves) from each
shrub species, take the samples back in a plastic bag and use an identification guide or the online
tree identification key. The website accompanies this activity.
When you have your figure for the number of shrub species in your 30-yard section, use the graph
above to estimate the age of the hedge.

Questions
Q4 Suggest reasons why the estimate of your hedges age could be a) too young b) too old.
Q5 The evenness of shrub species composition in the hedge is another measure of biodiversity. Explain
how you could measure the species evenness of your hedge.
The sample data in Table 1 on page 3 gives the number of individuals counted at each of six sites on
Pocklington Beck. Use the data to complete the questions that follow.
Q6 Work out the species richness for each site and decide which site has the greatest biodiversity.
Q7 Compare species evenness for the six sites. Comment on whether this affects which site is considered
to have the greatest biodiversity

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

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Student

Activity 4.11 Exploring biodiversity

Pocklington Beck: Exploring biodiversity

Table 1 Sample data for Pocklington Beck. Numbers of individuals counted at each site. The data below is also available
as an Excel spreadsheet which can be accessed through the activity page.

Taxonomic group

Name

Site 1

Site 2

Site 3

Site 4

Site 5

Site 6

Polycelis nigra

14

Polycelis feline

Horsehair worms

175

Tubifex tubifex

428

48

11

Other worms

46

21

Platyhelminthes

Annelida
True worms

Leeches

Erpobdella octoculata
Glossiphonia complanata

Spire shell snail

34

Ramshorn snail

Fresh water limpet

12

Cyclops

Water hoglouse

Gammarus pulex

263

659

56

18

58

Large water boatman

17

Olive mayfly nymph

419

213

17

13

43

Burrowing mayfly nymph

Flattened mayfly nymph

31

Striped mayfly nymph

47

37

14

Swimming mayfly nymph

Sand cased caddis larvae

17

Stone cased caddis

larvae

Green caseless caddis

12

Midge larvae

24

671

1037

92

164

Chironomid midge larvae

43

28

Dicranota larvae

Tipula larvae

33

35

Elmid beetle/larvae

22

15

Halipid type beetle

Agabus type beetle

19

Other beetle

Red mite

51

Brown mite

18

17

Other mite

Bullhead fish

Brown trout

Mollusca

Arthropoda
Crustacea

Insecta

Arachnida

Chordata
Fish

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

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Activity 4.11 Exploring biodiversity

Student

Using the Natural History Museum Exploring Biodiversity website, navigate to measuring
biodiversity hotspots. (The website is in the weblinks that accompany this activity.) Your task is
to explore the virtual landscape and investigate the biodiversity of each grid square using three
different biodiversity measurements.
Q8

First, look at the imaginary landscape and decide which grid squares you think would be biodiversity
hot spots. Suggest a reason for your selection.
Q9
Hover the cursor over one of the species symbols and see where this species exists on the grid. Look
at the distribution of ground beetles, bullheads and black grouse, and for each species suggest an
explanation for the pattern of distribution. The information that appears by using the drop down
species menu may help.
Q10 Check to see if the hotspots you suggested agree with those in the programme by clicking on show
measures and then select each of the three ways of measuring biodiversity (species richness, taxic
richness and range-size rarity) in turn. Note the way in which the distribution of biodiversity and in
particular the hotspots (in red) change. If you go to the bottom of the screen and click on the name of
each method you get background information describing how each method of measuring biodiversity
works. Write a short summary for each of the biodiversity measures.
Q11 Using this information, explain why the hotspots are not the same when using the different measures
of biodiversity. Which do you think is the most commonly used measure of biodiversity and why?

Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology, Pearson Education Ltd 2008. University of York Science Education Group.
This sheet may have been altered from the original.

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