[Taxacom] Biodiversity questions

[Barry OConnor]

And of course, since families, as a ranked category in the Linnaean
hierarchy, are totally artificial constructs (even if monophyletic), and
don't reflect anything biological other than someone's hypothesis of
relationships of the included taxa, these questions are really meaningless.
All the best! - Barry


On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 7:08 PM, Ken Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Laith,
>
>        I suppose it depends in part how big an area one is looking at, and
> perhaps also whether it is an area of land (its lakes and rivers) or an
> area of ocean.  And "what does it mean" questions can be rather nebulous
> and difficult to answer.  Therefore, I would only offer some
> generalizations just to get the ball rolling.
>
>      In general, lots of families with lots of species indicates high
> biodiversity, and few families with only one or two species each indicates
> low biodiversity.  Lots of families with only one or two species each would
> still indicate a high biodiversity to me, but obviously not as high as lots
> of families with lots of species.
>
>      Few families with lots of species each I might call species rich, but
> low biodiversity (but obviously not as low as few families with only one or
> two species each).  Of course, a specialist in one of those few families
> might refer to that high species richness as high biodiversity, but I
> wouldn't.    As for your third question, I'd have to think about that, but
> I would think such ratios would have a more useful meaning in some
> contexts, but little meaning in other contexts.
>
>             --------------Ken
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> > From: laith_jawad at hotmail.com
> > To: taxacom-request at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2013 17:12:29 +1300
> > Subject: [Taxacom] Biodiversity questions
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hi All
> >
> >
> > I have three questions regarding fish biodiversity I hope I can find
> their answer with you.Q1. What does it mean if you have large or small
> number of families with only one or wo species in each of them? Q2. What
> does it mean if you have large number or small number of families with
> large number of species?
> > Q3. In some biodiversity studies, people use the ration no. of
> species/no. families, no. of genera/no. of families. What does it mean if
> the ratio high or low? and when I should say it is high and when it is low?
> > Are these changes have something to do with the evolution of the
> families in the area?
> > Looking forward to hearing from you in the near future.
> > RegardsLaith A. JawadAucklandNew Zealand
> >
> >
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-- 
-So many mites, so little time!

Barry M. OConnor
Professor  & Curator
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology/Museum of Zoology

University of Michigan                  phone: 734-763-4354
1109 Geddes Ave.                          fax: 734-763-4080
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079          e-mail: bmoc at umich.edu