Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons^™

Weighting Effective Number Of Species Measures By Abundance Weakens Detection Of Diversity Responses, Yong Cao, Charles P. Hawkins

Ecology Center Publications

1. The effective number of species (ENS) has been proposed as a robust measure of species diversity that overcomes several limitations in terms of both diversity indices and species richness (SR). However, it is not yet clear if ENS improves interpretation and comparison of biodiversity monitoring data, and ultimately resource management decisions.

2. We used simulations of five stream macroinvertebrate assemblages and spatially extensive field data of stream fishes and mussels to show (a) how different ENS formulations respond to stress and (b) how diversity–environment relationships change with values of q, which weight ENS measures by species abundances.

3. Values …