Greek summer school CBCD

The session will look at the measurement of biodiversity and will introduce a number of ways of quantifying biodiversity, including alpha, beta and gamma diversity, species richness and will compare a range of biodiversity indices.  Real life data from the session leaders own research will be provided for the students to interrogate firstly by hand and secondly using computer based assessments.  Students will critically evaluate the data and draw conclusions about the practical use of biodiversity indices and the appropriateness of using them in a range of situations.    

In this session, students will use a Monte-Carlo simulation program to investigate some aspects of the demographics and genetics of small populations. Students will explore the interacting themes of chance and determinism as exponents of a population’s fate. They will see how populations are lost through chance effects such as demographic stochasticity and how events such as population’ s bottlenecks can leave signatures on the genetic diversity of a species long after the event. Students will finish with an exercise in population viability analysis.