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Estimating species richness: still a long way off!
Author(s) -
Chiarucci Alessandro
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of vegetation science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1654-1103
pISSN - 1100-9233
DOI - 10.1111/jvs.12003
Subject(s) - jackknife resampling , species richness , estimator , vegetation (pathology) , statistics , mathematics , ecology , global biodiversity , geography , biodiversity , biology , medicine , pathology
Xu et al., in this issue of the Journal of Vegetation Scien ce, compare several species richness estimators. All the non‐parametric estimators, such as Chao and jackknife estimators, underestimated the true number, whereas all the area‐based models, based on species–area curves, overestimated it. No reliable method yet exists to predict the number of species in an area that is appreciably larger than the one(s) sampled.