Zoe Wreggitt (7729509)!

Group 2, B01

Laboratory Assignment #5!

NUMBER 1! Null Hypothesis:! There is no di"erence in the diversity of community 1 (unexploited) and 2 (exploited).!

" Prediction:!

I expected that there would be di"erences in the diversity of the two communities because we have learned in lecture that exploited communities often lower diversity due to a number of factors. Also, we were able to see all of the species in their communities before the lab started. It was apparent that there was a di"erence in species richness between the two communities. ! NUMBER 2! Figure 1. Species-area curve; cumulative number of species for each community during the samples.!
Community 1 (unexploited) 7 Community 2 (exploited)

Cumulative number of species

10

11

12

Number of samples

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Zoe Wreggitt (7729509)!

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NUMBER 3!

Group 2, B01

Figure 2. Rank-abundance plot; species abundance and their rank for each community.!
Community 1 (unexploited) 3 Community 2 (exploited)

Species abundance (log)

2.25

1.5

0.75

Abundance rank NUMBER 4" " Table 1. The values of the Shannon-Weaver Index (H), Evenness (EH), Simpsons, Diversity Index (D), and Evenness (ED).! (Please see sample calculations on pages 4 and 5)."
Shannon-Weaver Index (H) Community 1 Community 2 1.683 0.976 Evenness (E Simpsons Diversity Index (D) 0.865 0.606 4.932 1.996 Evenness (E

0.704 0.399

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Zoe Wreggitt (7729509)! Group 2, B01

NUMBER 5! We reject the null hypothesis with a certainty level of 95% because our calculated t-value is 10.187 and the tabled t-value is 2.306. In fact, we can reject the null hypothesis at a 99% level of certainty because the tabled t-value at alpha=.001 is 5.041. Please note that the degrees of freedom is 8. There is evidence that we will be rejecting the null hypothesis before the t-test because the mean and standard deviations for community 1 and 2 are 5.804 .559 and 2.526 .453, respectively. These mean and standard deviations show that there is no overlap, therefore, there is a difference in the diversity of the two communities." (Please see sample calculation on page 6)." NUMBER 6! A! The twelve samples were adequate to determine the number of species present in each community. This is shown in Figure 1. because the communities reach their asymptotes early on. The sampling adequacy did not differ between the two communities. They both reach their asymptotes at the fth and sixth trials." B! The rank abundance plots differed between the two communities. Figure 2. shows that the unexploited community has more species compared to the exploited community. The rst four species in Figure 2. have similar abundance for both communities, however the exploited community is missing two species that are present in the unexploited community and has very low numbers for the fth species shown. The decrease in diversity in the exploited community may be partially due to a decrease in the rare species in that community. This decrease may have resulted in an increase for the competitively dominant species. The rst species in Figure 2. for the exploited community appears to be dominant. " C! The two sample t-test shows that the two communities differed in diversity. The two measures of diversity (D and H), shown in Table 1., were different. D was basically twice as large as H. Even though the numbers of D and H were different they still resulted in the same conclusion that the two communities differed in diversity. This is because the ratio between community 1 and 2 for both D and H is very similar (2:1).

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