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Calculating-Diversity-Index

The document discusses biodiversity, defined as the variety of life on Earth, and how it can be quantified using measures of richness and evenness. It explains the importance of diversity indices, specifically the Simpson index and Shannon-Weiner index, which account for species abundance and evenness to assess biodiversity. Additionally, it provides examples and formulas for calculating these indices to determine community diversity.

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Cristian Rey Galendez
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12 views

Calculating-Diversity-Index

The document discusses biodiversity, defined as the variety of life on Earth, and how it can be quantified using measures of richness and evenness. It explains the importance of diversity indices, specifically the Simpson index and Shannon-Weiner index, which account for species abundance and evenness to assess biodiversity. Additionally, it provides examples and formulas for calculating these indices to determine community diversity.

Uploaded by

Cristian Rey Galendez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Calculating Biodiversity Using Diversity Index

Biodiversity is the shortened form of two words "biological" and "diversity". It refers to all the variety
of life that can be found on Earth (plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms) as well as to the
communities that they form and the habitats in which they live. Biological diversity can be quantified in
many different ways. The two main factors taken into account when measuring diversity are richness
and evenness. Richness is a measure of the number of different kinds of organisms present in a
particular area. For example, species richness is the number of different species present. However,
diversity depends not only on richness, but also on evenness. Evenness compares the similarity of the
population size of each of the species present.

1. Richness
The number of species per sample is a measure of richness. The more species present in a
sample, the 'richer' the sample. Species richness as a measure on its own takes no account of the
number of individuals of each species present. It gives as much weight to those species which have
very few individuals as to those which have many individuals. Thus, one daisy has as much influence
on the richness of an area as 1000 buttercups.

2. Evenness
Evenness is a measure of the relative abundance of the different species making up the richness
of an area. It refers to how close in numbers each species in an environment is. So if there are 40
foxes and 1000 dogs, the community is not very even. But if there are 40 foxes and 42 dogs, the
community is quite even. A community dominated by one or two species is considered to be less
diverse than one in which several different species have a similar abundance.
The evenness of a community can be represented by Pielou's evenness index (Pielou 1966):

J = H / Hmax

H = Shannon Diversity Value


Hmax = ln (richness)

The value of J ranges from 0 to 1. Higher values indicate higher levels of evenness. At maximum
evenness, J = 1. J can also be used as measures of species dominance (the opposite of diversity) in
a community. Low J indicates that 1 or few species dominate the community.
Diversity Index
A diversity index is a quantitative measure that reflects how many different types (such as
species) there are in a dataset (a community). These indices are statistical representations of
biodiversity in different aspects (richness, evenness, and dominance). When diversity indices are
used in ecology, the types of interest are usually species; hence, species diversity.
The two commonly used index to measure biodiversity are Simpson index (D) and Shannon’s
index (H).

A. Simpson Index (D)


It is a measure of diversity, which takes into account the number of species present, as well
as the relative abundance of each species. As species richness and evenness increase, so
diversity increases.

n = the total number of organisms of a particular species


N = the total number of organisms of all species

The value of D ranges between 0 and 1. With this index, 1 represents infinite diversity and 0,
no diversity.

B. Shannon-Weiner Index
It is another index that is commonly used to characterize species diversity in a community.
Like Simpson's index, Shannon's index accounts for both abundance and evenness of the
species present. It is explained by the formula:

In the Shannon index, p is the proportion (n/N) of individuals of one particular species found
(n) divided by the total number of individuals found (N), ln is the natural log, Σ is the sum of
the calculations, and s is the number of encountered species.
Here, values ranges from 0 to 5 wherein a high value of H would be a representative of a
diverse and equally distributed community and lower values represent less diverse community.
A value of 0 would represent a community with just one species.
NOTE:
The Shannon index stresses the richness component and rare cover types, whilst the Simpson
index lays greater emphasis on the evenness component and on the dominant cover types
(McGarigal and Marks, 1994, Haines-Young and Chopping, 1996, Riitters, Wickham, Vogelmann and
Jones, 2000).

Example
The samples of 5 species are 60, 10, 25, 1, 4. Calculate the Shannon diversity index for these
sample values.

Putting the figures into the formula for Shannon's Index:


Shannon Index (H) = - (-1.07)
H = 1.07
Seatwork

Using the data sets of two communities shown below, calculate the Shannon-Weiner Index
(H) and Pielou’s evenness index of each community to identify which of the 2 communities is more
diverse.

Order Description of Specimen Number of Individuals


Community 1 Community 2
Orthoptera Green with red legs 6 25
(Grasshopper) Brown with a yellow stripe 5 2
Lepidoptera Large, blue 1 17
(Butterfly) Small, blue 3 9
Coleoptera (Beetle) Red and blue 12
Hymenoptera (Bee) Striped 5
Hymenoptera Black 12
(Wasp) Purple 21

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