Measuring Biological Diversity

This accessible and timely book provides a comprehensive overview of how to measure biodiversity. The book highlights new developments, including innovative approaches to measuring taxonomic distinctness and estimating species richness, and evaluates these alongside traditional methods such as species abundance distributions, and diversity and evenness statistics. Helps the reader quantify and interpret patterns of ecological diversity, focusing on the measurement and estimation of species richness and abundance. Explores the concept of ecological diversity, bringing new perspectives to a field beset by contradictory views and advice. Discussion spans issues such as the meaning of community in the context of ecological diversity, scales of diversity and distribution of diversity among taxa Highlights advances in measurement paying particular attention to new techniques such as species richness estimation, application of measures of diversity to conservation and environmental management and addressing sampling issues Includes worked examples of key methods in helping people to understand the techniques and use available computer packages more effectively

Preface vii Chapter 1. Introduction: measurement of (biological) diversity 1 Chapter 2. The commonness, and rarity, of species 18 Chapter 3. How many species? 72 Chapter 4. An index of diversity 100 Chapter 5. Comparative studies of diversity 131 Chapter 6. Diversity in space (and time) 162 Chapter 7. No prospect of an end 185 References 194 Worked Examples 216 Index 248