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Algebraic and Graphical Relationships Among Niche Breadth Measures
Author(s) -
Petraitis Peter S.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.2307/1937719
Subject(s) - niche , measure (data warehouse) , ecological niche , function (biology) , mathematics , tangent , resource (disambiguation) , algebraic number , ecology , computer science , biology , geometry , data mining , mathematical analysis , evolutionary biology , computer network , habitat
Five measures of niche breadth (Hurlbert's, Levins', Petraitis', and Schoener's) can be described by a single function similar to Hill's function of diversity. Choice of which measure to used depends on how the experimenter wishes to weight the data. Utilization of a resource divided by the availability of that resource can be viewed as the tangent of an angle. Niche breadth and overlap measures are related to the sum of the tangents and can be presented graphically. The graphical technique is extended to describe the relationship between niche breadth and Ivlev's standardized measure of electivity.