Plant Species Richness and Diversity

Abstract

Shallow aquatic communities have the lowest species richness and diversity whereas marsh and meadow communities have the highest species richness and diversity; indices for emergent marshes are intermediate. By treatment, process-affected wetlands are distinguishable from other wetlands in their low indices of plot-level species richness and diversity. These wetlands are often dominated by a few disturbance-adapted ecological generalists. The fact that process-affected and OSREF wetlands differ from each other in their species richness and diversity suggests that process-affected wetlands impose chemical or physical limitations that militate against plant establishment and persistence. The replicate data similarly demonstrate lower indices of plot-level species richness and diversity in industrial than in natural wetlands. Industrial wetlands contain more weed species and a higher cover of weedy species in their plots than do natural wetlands. At the landscape-level, industrial wetlands contain a depauperate number of native plant species relative to natural wetlands.

If conservation is to succeed, the public must come to understand the inherent wrongness of the destruction of biological diversity.

David Ehrenfeld, Biodiversity, Chapter 24, 1988