. You are monitoring species richness for birds in a series of forests of differ

Question

. You are monitoring species richness for birds in a series of forests of different sizes. You find that the plot of species richness vs. area is log-linear and approximately follows the equation S = 2A0.5 , where area is given in km2 (see Question 1d for an explanation of the components of this equation). The forests are being reduced in size due to logging. What do you predict will be the species richness and # species lost in forests A and B in the following scenarios?

a) Forest A. This forest was originally 2,000 km2 but 1,000 km2 are cut down, leaving a forest of 1,000 km2. (1.5 pts)

The # species before (2,000 km2):      ______________

The # species after (1,000 km2):         ______________

How many species do you expect will be lost from Forest A because of this forest size decrease?___________

Explanation / Answer

since, it is given that the species richness vs area of forest follows a log-linear graph. It can be said that there is a linear increase in species richness with increase in area of forest.

suppose the given equation S=2A0.5 is followed approximately where S is species richness and A is area of forest. Then,

# species before (A=2000km2) = 2 X 2000 X 0.5 = 2000birds

# species after (A=1000km2) = 1 X 1000 X 0.5 = 1000birds

when the size of the forest is decreased to half, the species population is also halved. ( also indicated in log linear graph that the two parameters i.e. #species and forest area(in km2) are directly dependent on each other)

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