Moslem Rostampour
Abstract
Studying biodiversity is a prerequisite for sustainable management of rangeland ecosystems. The purpose of the present study is to compare plant criteria for measuring species richness, diversity and evenness indices in terms of precision in the rangelands of Darmian-Sarabisheh Protected Area, South ...
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Studying biodiversity is a prerequisite for sustainable management of rangeland ecosystems. The purpose of the present study is to compare plant criteria for measuring species richness, diversity and evenness indices in terms of precision in the rangelands of Darmian-Sarabisheh Protected Area, South Khorasan. Absolute and relative species canopy cover (dominance), density, frequency, and abundance were measured in each plant type, and species relative importance value (IVI) was determined by different equations. Descriptive statistics were used to select the best method of calculating IVI. For this purpose, Artemisia aucheri boiss, Cousinia eryngioides boiss. and Eryngium Bungei Boiss., were present at all habitats, were selected, and statistical measures such as the standard error of the mean and coefficient variation were calculated. A one-way variance analysis test was also used to evaluate the effect of biodiversity assessment criteria on numerical indices. The results of the ANOVA showed that the effect of the criteria for calculating the numerical indices on all biodiversity indices (except the number of species) was significant (p≤0.01). The numerical value of diversity indices was different according to different criteria, so that the value calculated by canopy cover was the lowest and abundance and frequency were the highest. The IVI3 index (relative abundance+relative frequency) has the least SEM and CV (7.30 and 23.37 %), so it is more accurate. The results indicate that all biodiversity indicators based on IVI are of higher accuracy, so it is recommended to use IVI to calculate biodiversity indicators, instead of using density, cover percentage and production.
