Species-Area Relationship — NEET Biology
✅ Asked in NEET 2024Species-Area relationships: During his pioneering and extensive explorations in the wilderness of South American jungles, the great German naturalist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt observed that within a region species richness increased with increasing explored area, but only up to a limit. In fact, the relation between species richness and area for a wide variety of taxa (angiosperm plants, birds, bats, freshwater fishes) turns out to be a rectangular hyperbola. On a logarithmic scale, the relationship is a straight line described by the equation
The species-area relationship shows that species richness increases with explored area, following a rectangular hyperbola pattern (or straight line on a log scale). NTA tests this because Humboldt's observation is fundamental to understanding biodiversity distribution. Students often confuse the shape of the curve—thinking it's linear instead of hyperbolic—or forget that richness increases only up to a limit, not indefinitely. Remember: on normal scale it's a rectangular hyperbola, on logarithmic scale it becomes a straight line. This concept directly relates to conservation planning and understanding how habitat size affects species diversity.
This paragraph was tested 2 times in NEET.
Match List I with List II (NEET 2024) List – I A. Robert May B. Alexander von Humboldt C. Paul Ehrlich D. David Tilman List – II I. Species–Area relationship II. Long-term ecosystem experiment using outdoor plots III. Global species diversity at about 7 million IV. Rivet popper hypothesis
Alexander von Humboldt described for the first time: (NEET 2017)
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