Measuring and Estimating Species Richness, Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Diversity, and Related Biotic (Dis)similarity Indices From Sampling Data

This article reviews modern statistical approaches to estimating species/taxonomic diversity (including species richness), phylogenetic diversity, and related biotic (dis)similarity measures from empirical samples of species abundance or incidence. Key methods include asymptotic diversity estimation, non-asymptotic standardization via rarefaction and extrapolation, diversity decomposition (alpha, beta, and gamma), and related (dis)similarity measures. Hill numbers are presented as unifying measures of species diversity that take into account species richness and species relative abundance. Under the framework of Hill numbers, all key methods can be extended to account for phylogenetic and functional diversity of biological assemblages. These statistical methods control for several kinds of sampling effects in biodiversity data and can be applied to many important questions in ecology.