Ecological Diversity: Measuring the Unmeasurable

Aisling J. Daly, Jan M. Baetens and Bernard De Baets
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Aisling J. Daly: KERMIT, Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling, Ghent University, Coupure links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
Jan M. Baetens: KERMIT, Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling, Ghent University, Coupure links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium
Bernard De Baets: KERMIT, Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling, Ghent University, Coupure links 653, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

Mathematics, 2018, vol. 6, issue 7, 1-28

Abstract: Diversity is a concept central to ecology, and its measurement is essential for any study of ecosystem health. But summarizing this complex and multidimensional concept in a single measure is problematic. Dozens of mathematical indices have been proposed for this purpose, but these can provide contradictory results leading to misleading or incorrect conclusions about a community’s diversity. In this review, we summarize the key conceptual issues underlying the measurement of ecological diversity, survey the indices most commonly used in ecology, and discuss their relative suitability. We advocate for indices that: (i) satisfy key mathematical axioms; (ii) can be expressed as so-called effective numbers; (iii) can be extended to account for disparity between types; (iv) can be parameterized to obtain diversity profiles; and (v) for which an estimator (preferably unbiased) can be found so that the index is useful for practical applications.

Keywords: diversity; richness; evenness; effective numbers; estimators; mathematical ecology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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