Species Richness and Diversity

Abstract

This chapter provides some metrics for measuring species diversity, the most basic and important diversity component in ecological studies. The metrics for species diversity covered only some common used ones in this book, like Shannon and Simpson indices. The closed forms for computing the variance of the relevant indices are also provided. Typical methods for the extrapolation of species richness are also mentioned in the text.

Keywords: Ecological indicators, ecosystem functioning, extinction risk, functional diversity, functional redundancy, functional traits, molecular information, phenotype, statistical ecology.