New biodiversity index for anthropized and natural areas

Abstract

The Earth suffers increasing pressures that modify the composition of habitats and globalization fragments its ecosystems while introducing species from diverse places. The result is the emergence of increasingly monolithic environments and increased entropy because foreign species can displace natural biodiversity. To estimate the biodiversity of ecosystems, an error is made if exotic species are excluded and an error is also made if they are included in the calculation as if they were natural. To solve the problem, the methodology consisted of deducing the Natural Biodiversity Index (NB’). The results demonstrate that NB’ detected the urban-rural gradient. The NB’ is projected as an indicator applicable in populations of different organisms, easy to calculate and interpretable and translatable into a probabilistic discourse. Furthermore, the NB’ index could be a complement to human development indices that want to relativize industrial development and evaluate the pressure exerted by the most advanced human societies on the degradation of their ecosystems.