Diversity Indices

Question 1

What is H’

Answer 1

Aka: Shannon weiner diversity index.
An index of diversity. Always a positive value. Increases with an increase in number of species present or an increase in evenness of species present.
Calculated by: (-)Sum of (Pi-logPi)

Question 2

What is H’max?

Answer 2

Aka: Species Richness.
A measure of the maximum value that H’ can have for a given number of species.
Calculated by Log(S)

Question 3

What is Pi?

Answer 3

cover of species i/total cover of all species

Question 4

What is J’?

Answer 4

Aka: Equitability Index
Ratio of H’/Hmax
Measures how close to H’max H’ is. The closer J’ is to one, the more equally species are represented.

Question 5

What is D?

Answer 5

Aka: Dominance index. 1-J’

A measure of the degree to which one or a few species dominate the community in terms of individuals.

Question 6

What is CCj

Answer 6

Jaccards coefficient of community
A measure of how many species that are common in 2 sites being compared.
c/S1+S2-c (where c = species in common and S1 and S2 are the species in each site)