Biodiversity Lab

Biodiversity Simulator — Species & Ecosystems

Biodiversity measures the variety of life within an ecosystem, from genetic variation within species to the total number of species in a habitat. This simulator lets you manipulate habitat size, connectivity, and disturbance frequency to observe how species richness and evenness change according to island biogeography and intermediate disturbance theory. Conservation decisions about habitat corridors and reserve size become tangible through the resulting species counts.

What you can do in this simulation

• Adjust habitat patch size and isolation to see species richness change via island biogeography
• Introduce disturbances of varying frequency and intensity to trace the intermediate disturbance effect
• Add or remove habitat corridors and observe immigration rates between patches
• Calculate Shannon diversity index and Simpson's index as the community assembles
• Compare species richness under intact vs. fragmented landscape configurations

Concepts covered

species richness · island biogeography · habitat fragmentation · Shannon diversity index · disturbance ecology · conservation

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Free to use in your browser — no signup required. Found a bug or have an idea to make it better? Tell us.