The document defines key terms related to forest ecology, plant anatomy, and biodiversity metrics. It describes characteristics of mature forests and different types of leaves. It also defines riparian zones and provides examples of vertebrates and invertebrates. Finally, it explains concepts like species diversity, richness, evenness, and the Shannon diversity index, which are used to measure biodiversity in an environment.

1. Forest of Knowledge

2. Mature Forest Healthy trees that have grown to marketable size, suitable for harvest. The trees are at maximum growth and health.

3. Deciduous Means falling off at maturity- typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe.

4. Riparian Living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater.

8. Petiole~ Botany . The slender stalk by which a leaf is attached to the stem; leafstalk.

9. Vertebrate~having a spinal column or backbone. Examples: Humans, Cats, Dogs

10. Invertebrate~ Without a backbone Examples: Jellyfish Star fish Crabs

12. Species richness: The number of species in an environment

13. Species evenness- How equal the number of animals in a species are compared with other species Ex.) 42 foxes and 1000 dogs are not even, but 42 foxes and 40 dogs are.

14. One of several diversity indices used to measure diversity in categorical data. It is simply the Information entorpy of the distribution, treating species as symbols and their relative population sizes as the probability. Shannon- Diversity Index