Distance-based functional diversity measures and their decomposition: a framework based on Hill numbers.

ABSTRACT: Hill numbers (or the "effective number of species") are increasingly used to characterize species diversity of an assemblage. This work extends Hill numbers to incorporate species pairwise functional distances calculated from species traits. We derive a parametric class of functional Hill numbers, which quantify "the effective number of equally abundant and (functionally) equally distinct species" in an assemblage. We also propose a class of mean functional diversity (per species), which quantifies the effective sum of functional distances between a fixed species to all other species. The product of the functional Hill number and the mean functional diversity thus quantifies the (total) functional diversity, i.e., the effective total distance between species of the assemblage. The three me

SUBMITTER: Chiu CH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4085071 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature