Community Ecology
Volume/Issue:
Volume 11: Issue 1
On plot-to-plot dissimilarity measures based on species functional traits
Authors:
C. Ricotta University of Rome “La Sapienza” Department of Plant Biology Piazzale Aldo Moro 5 00185 Rome Italy

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and
G. Bacaro University of Siena BIOCONNET, Biodiversity and Conservation Network, Department of Environmental Science “G. Sarfatti” Via P. A. Mattioli 4 53100 Siena Italy

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Pages:
113–119
Online Publication Date:
17 Jun 2010
Publication Date:
01 Jun 2010
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/comec.11.2010.1.16
Keywords:
Bray-Curtis dissimilarity; Expected species shared; Functional diversity; Parametric dissimilarity; Species relative abundances
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There are many different metrics for expressing the dissimilarity between two samples or plots. The large majority of these dissimilarity measures attempt to summarize different aspects of plot-to-plot dissimilarity based either on species presences and absences within plots or on species abundances. Here, we propose a new parametric measure of plot-to-plot functional dissimilarity that incorporates information about the degree of functional dissimilarity between species. This measure is obtained from the combination of Hurlbert’s ‘expected species diversity’ with one dissimilarity coefficient of the ‘Bray-Curtis family’ and calculates the expected functional dissimilarity between the species in plot A and their functional nearest neighbors in plot B if m individuals are chosen randomly with replacement from each of the two plots. Due to its parametric nature, the proposed measure has a different sensitivity to the presence of rare and abundant species within plots as a function of the selected parameter value.

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Cover Community Ecology
Community Ecology An Interdisciplinary Journal Reporting Progress in Community and Population Studies
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Community Ecology
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