Species Accumulation Curve Simulator (2D)

This simulator models how ecological monitoring programs — citizen-science bioblitzes, camera-trap grids, sensor networks and long-term LTER observation series — build up knowledge of a site's biodiversity one imperfect visit at a time. A hidden virtual community of species with a controllable true richness and abundance skew sits behind the scene; each simulated survey visit samples one encounter, subject to a realistic detection probability, and newly found species light up on the rank-abundance grid while a live accumulation curve tracks cumulative discoveries against sampling effort. Live readouts include the non-parametric Chao1 richness estimator — built from how many species have been seen only once or twice — so you can watch the estimate converge on the true (otherwise invisible) richness as sampling effort grows.