This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study that explored the relationship between species number and habitat isolation for arthropods living on desert shrubs. 

The arthropod species in this figure are specialist herbivores that feed and live only on the shrubs. The figure shows the number of these species on isolated shrubs at different distances from a large, dense clump of shrubs called the continent. The results can be used to demonstrate the distance effect, a major pattern in island biogeography.

The “Educator Materials” document includes a captioned figure, background information, graph interpretation, and discussion questions. The “Student Handout” includes a captioned figure and background information. 

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.