Premium
A new sampling formula for neutral biodiversity
Author(s) -
Etienne Rampal S.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00717.x
Subject(s) - relative abundance distribution , biodiversity , biological dispersal , abundance (ecology) , neutral theory of molecular evolution , ecology , sampling (signal processing) , relative species abundance , community , diversity index , species diversity , global biodiversity , biology , statistics , species richness , mathematics , computer science , ecosystem , population , sociology , filter (signal processing) , computer vision , biochemistry , demography , gene
The neutral model of biodiversity, proposed by Hubbell ( The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography , Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2001) to explain the diversity of functionally equivalent species, has been subject of hot debate in community ecology. Whereas Hubbell studied the model mostly by simulations, recently analytical treatments have yielded expressions of the expected number of species of a particular abundance in a local community with dispersal limitation. Moreover, a formula has been offered for the joint likelihood of observing a given species‐abundance dataset in a local community with dispersal limitation, but this formula is too complicated to allow practical applications. Here, I present a much simplified expression that can be regarded as an enhanced version of the famous Ewens sampling formula. It can be used in maximum likelihood methods for quick estimation of the model parameters, using all information in the data, and for model comparison. I also show how to rapidly generate examples of species‐abundance distributions for a given set of model parameters and how to calculate Simpson's diversity index.