Question

State ‘two’ observations made by German naturalist, Alexender von Humboldt during his extensive explorations in South American jungles.

Answer 1

Species - area relationship

Two observation made by German naturalist alexander von humboldt :

• German naturalist alexander von humboldt observed that within a region species richness increases with increasing explored area.

• but only upto, a limit and a graphical representation turns out to be a rectangular hyperbola .

• on a logirithmic scale the relationship is a straight line

logS = log C + Zlog A

S = species richness

Z = slope of line

C = Y intercept

• for example - for fruit eating birds and mammals the slope is found to be 1.15 (for a large area)

the slope gets more steeper with with increasing species - area richness.