Dominance Diversity on Disturbed Species Lab Report

I’m studying for my Biology class and don’t understand how to answer this. Can you help me study?

 

This assignment is to analyze species diversity from two lawns, one that is disturbed and one that is less disturbed, on CSUN’s campus.

Read pages 151-152 (at the end of chapter 5) for context on the Lawn Census activity, and Read pages 197-198 (at the end of chapter 7) to learn about dominance-diversity curves and the Shannon Index.

You can find the data here: Lawn Census Data F2020.xlsx

In Excel, create two dominance-diversity curves (one for each lawn) with non-grass species along the x-axis and ln(p) along the y-axis. In other words, make a line graph with natural log (ln) proportion of non-grass cover on the vertical axis and the non-grass species ordered by abundance on the horizontal axis. Label the y-axis as the ln proportion of non-grass cover and x-axis as non-grass species. You should have two lines, one for each lawn, on one graph.

Add the Shannon index value in a textbox above each line on the graph.

Delete gridlines and the chart title.

Please answer the following questions within a textbox in your Excel file below your graph:

1. 1. Compare the lines for the two lawns. Were the patterns similar or different in the two lawns? How so?
   2. Did the two lawns that your class surveyed have similar or different species richnesses? Give the species richness of each lawn (Species richness = # of different species represented; it is simply the species count).
   3. Compare the two lawns’ Shannon index values. Which lawn has more diversity of broad-leafed (non-grass) plants? (The higher the Shannon index value, the higher the species richness and evenness)

Please upload your calculations, graph, and brief answers to the three questions as an Excel file.