Alpha diversity (α-diversity) is the biodiversity within a particular area, community or ecosystem, and is measured by counting the number of taxa within the ecosystem (usually species). Rainforests are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on earth Biodiversity or biological diversity is the diversity of life. ... A community usually refers to a group of people who interact and share certain things as a group, but it can refer to various collections of living things sharing an environment, plant or animal. ... An ecosystem, a contraction of ecological and system, refers to the collection of components and processes that comprise, and govern the behavior of, some defined subset of the biosphere. ... A taxon (plural taxa), or taxonomic unit, is a grouping of organisms (named or unnamed). ... In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biodiversity. ...

The field of ecology includes researchers who study current biodiversity. Biodiversity of the past is the realm of Paleoecology. Past biodiversity is usually viewed by plotting the taxonomic richness of a geographic area over a temporal scale. For example, Sepkoski produced a diagram showing the diversification of skeletonized marine invertebrate taxa. This famous diagram shows a distinct three distinct logistic curves representing the diversification of three distinct faunas. Ernst Haeckel coined the term oekologie in 1866. ... you doedd you flydndoedd ha ha ha ha aha ...

Other measures of diversity

Alternative ways to measure biodiversity includes:

• Beta diversity - species diversity between ecosystems; this involves comparing the number of taxa that are unique to each of the ecosystems.
• Gamma diversity - taxonomic diversity of a region with several ecosystems.
• Global diversity - overall biodiversity of Earth.

Beta diversity (β-diversity) is a measure of biodiversity which works by comparing the species diversity between ecosystems. ...

Recent research

Jack Sepkoski a University of Chicago palaeontologist studied the fossil record and the diversity of life on Earth. Jack John Sepkoski died in 1999. Image File history File links Sepkoski. ... J. John Sepkoski Jr. ...

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/99/990504.sepkoski.shtml

Richard K. Bambach is Professor Emeritus of Paleontology at Harvard University. His research is focused on community paleoecology emphasizing the nature of fossil assemblages, analysis of gradients in the distribution of fossil assemblages reflecting environmental patterns, analysis of ecologic structure of fossil assemblages and changes in apparent community organization through time. http://www.geol.vt.edu/profs/rkb/rkb-r.html

Jonathan M. Adrain is an associate professor at the University of Iowa, studying Silurian trilobite alpha diversity and the end-Ordovician mass extinction. http://www.uiowa.edu/~geology/people/faculty/adrain

Sarda Sahney is a researcher at the University of Bristol in England who is conducting a large-scale macroevolutionary study on tetrapod alpha diversity through the Phanerozoic. http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~glxss/

External links

An explanation of many specific biodiversity terms using illustrations http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/heywood/geog358/Diversity/Biodiversity.htm

References

Sepkoski, J.J. Jr, 1984, A kinetic model of Phanerozoic taxonomic diversity, III. Post Paleozoic families and mass extinctions. Paleobiology 10: 246-267. Whittaker, R.H., 1972. Evolution and measurement of species diversity. Taxon 21: 213-251.