Question

The term alpha diversity refers to
(a)Genetic diversity
(b)Community and ecosystem diversity
(c)Species diversity
(d)None of the above

Answer 1

Biodiversity is often defined as the variability of all lifeforms, from genes to species, through to the broad scale of ecosystems The spatial component of biodiversity is represented by “Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.”

Complete answer:
Alpha diversity actually refers to community and ecosystem diversity. For measuring biodiversity over spatial scales, Whittaker in 1972 described three terms, namely alpha, beta, and gamma diversity.
The diversity within a particular ecosystem for the area is called Alpha diversity which is expressed as
-Local species pool or the diversity of each site
-The average species richness in a habitat.
-It is a local measure, which is the number of species found in a particular area or ecosystem
-For example, habitat named x is having 5 species of frogs there the Alpha diversity of frogs in this place is 5
-This diversity comes after closest to the popular concept of species richness and can be used to compare the species count in different ecosystem types.

Additional Information: Beta diversity refers to the degree of species composition changes along the environmental gradient.
For example, if the species composition of a community changes that successfully higher elevation on a mountain slope but is slow in the same species occupy the whole mountainside.
Gamma diversity is the diversity of the entire habitat.
It is a combination of alpha and beta diversity—the sum of all the species of all habitats within the region of interest.
So, the correct answer is “Community and ecosystem diversity.”

Note: Biodiversity can be termed as and measured like an attribute consisting of two components, such as richness and evenness. Richness refers to the number of groups of genetically related individuals in the species.