Will you explain the relationship between habitat size and species diversity?

1 Answer
Jan 3, 2016

Habitat size and species diversity are directly proportional to each other.

Explanation:

The relationship between habitat size and species diversity is that the smaller the habitat, the less diversity of species there will be. The smaller the "island," the fewer species can live there, the smaller their populations can be, and the more vulnerable they are to further disturbance or climate change.

For example, if one species is very productive, it might be able to 'steal' all the resources, and biodiversity would be very low. At very low productivity, there are very few species. At intermediate productivity, more species can exist, but at high productivity, a few species can use all of the resources, and biodiversity gets low again. However, researchers found things are different when you look at a different spatial scale, like a whole watershed of several ponds. Here, diversity increases consistently as productivity increases.