Diversity Indices

1. Diversity Indices
• Shannon Species Index
• Species Richness
• Pielou Index of Evenness
• Margalef Species Richness

2. Objectives:
• Determine the importance of using
Ecological indices in conducting ecological
studies.
• Use the formula Shannon Species Index,
Pielou Index of Evenness, Species Richness
and Margalef Species Richness to solve an
Ecological study simulation.

3. Ecology
• Physiological Ecology Applications
• Population Ecology
• Community Ecology
• Ecosystem Ecology

4. Ecological Diversity
• Relates to the
different forms of
life which are
present in a
particular site.

6. Diversity Index
• A diversity index is a mathematical measure of
species diversity in a community.
• Diversity indices provide more information
about community composition than simply
species richness (i.e., the number of species
present); they also take the relative
abundances of different species into account

7. Diversity Index
• Diversity indices provide important
information about
– rarity
– commonness of species in a community.
The ability to quantify diversity in this way is an
important tool for biologists trying to understand
community structure.

8. Shannon Species Diversity Index
• The Shannon diversity index (H) is another
index that is commonly used to characterize
species diversity in a community.
• Shannon's index accounts for both abundance
and evenness of the species present.

9. Practice: Determine species diversity
using Shannon Species Diversity Index

11. Transfer your data in the table
Species #Individual Pi lnPi Pi (lnPi)
1
2
3
4
5
Total = H’=

12. Pielou’s Index of Evenness
• Refers to HOW close in numbers each species
in an environment are.

13. Species Richness and Margalef
Species Richness
• Species richness is a measure for the total
number of the species in a community.
• This measure is strongly dependent on
sampling size and effort.

14. THE END