In this lab, the diversity of plant species in different environments were observed. The diversity of plant species were collected on a hill and a flatland. Depending on the slope of the environment, the plant diversity differed. Diversity is beneficial in an environment due to the stability it creates, making organisms more suitable for fighting disease and responding to other changes to its surroundings. An environment is healthy when it is very rich. Richness is the number of species in a community. The most common way to determine whether an environment is diverse is by calculating the Shannon Diversity Index. The Shannon Diversity Index is a method to mathematically measure a community’s diversity (Beals). This is important to biologists, enabling them to observe how rare or common a species is in an environment (Beals). Different enviornments were observed in order to see if the type of topography resulted in a difference in plant diversity. On a hill, the nutrients and soil ran down to the bottom, preventing plants from using them. The assumption can be made that there will be less diversity on a hill than there would be on a flatland due to the lack of nutrients.
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Hi! One thing I noticed was
Hi! One thing I noticed was that there were changes in the tense that you were using. I remember the professor saying that scientific writing should always be in past tense.
If I am reading this
If I am reading this correctly, it seems as if there is an abrupt change from "Rich" to "Diverse"? I would suggest somehow linking that in the context of this writing you make it clear to the reader that these are the same concept, as to prevent any confusion. For instance in the sentence "Richness is the number of species in a community" you could change it to "Richness may be defined by the number of species in a community, otherwise known as its diversity" (although I persoanlly hesitate to use the term "otherwise" so it may need further restructuing) and then continue on explaining how to determine diversity.