Biodiversity and species discovery curves: a teaching simulation

Abstract

One aspect of biodiversity is species number. Estimating the number of species at a site is problematic but one method involves iterative sampling, and then uses the data to produce a time-series of species discovery. This paper illustrates the method and some of the inherent problems in a simulation exercise. Data are culled from internal mail circulation envelopes at a school, and used to estimate the number of teachers.