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The effect of sampling on the species-area curve

Hill, Jennifer; Curran, P.; Foody, G.

Authors

Jenny Hill Jennifer.Hill@uwe.ac.uk
Associate Professor in Teaching and Learning

P. Curran

G. Foody



Abstract

The species-area curve has been used to link the biological with the geographical. Larger areas of land would seem to contain more species as a result of both the effect of sampling (i.e. more samples are taken to represent larger areas) and ecological processes (i.e. island biogeography theory and hypotheses relating to habitat diversity, successional development, species-energy, target-area, incidence function, small island habitat and disturbance). Unfortunately, the species-area curve is usually interpreted as though it was due entirely to ecological processes when it could be due largely to sampling. Modelled and real data (for forests in Ghana) demonstrated that while the effect of both ecological processes alone and sampling alone increased species number with area, only ecological processes could be expected to increase the number of species per unit area. These results suggest that before a species-area curve could be used as an indicator of ecological processes the effect of sampling on the species-area curve must first be removed.

Citation

Hill, J., Curran, P., & Foody, G. (1994). The effect of sampling on the species-area curve. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters, 4, 97-106

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Jan 1, 1994
Journal Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters
Print ISSN 0960-7447
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 4
Pages 97-106
Keywords sampling, species-area, Ghana, forests
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1108766