Sensitivity of diversity indices: a study of dipterous assemblages

J. Izsák; L. Papp

doi:10.1556/comec.3.2002.1.9

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Community Ecology

Volume/Issue:: Volume 3: Issue 1

Sensitivity of diversity indices: a study of dipterous assemblages

Authors:

J. Izsák

J. Izsák Department of Zoology, Berzsenyi College Károlyi G. tér 4., H-9701 Szombathely, Hungary

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L. Papp

L. Papp Department of Zoology, Hungarian Natural History Museum Budapest, Baross u. 13., H-1088 Hungary

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Pages:: 79–86

Online Publication Date:: 22 Jul 2005

Publication Date:: 01 Jun 2002

Article Category:: Research Article

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1556/comec.3.2002.1.9

Keywords:: Hill's indices; Hill's indices; Hurlbert's indices; Rank - abundance curves; Sensitivity parameters; Shannon index

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It is an essential property of diversity indices that increases in the abundance or frequency of the most frequent species result in a decline in diversity, whereas increases in the abundance of the rarest species lead to an increase in diversity. At the same time, without resort to mathematical operations, it is difficult to determine the sign and measure of alteration in diversity when increasing an additional frequency while leaving all others unaltered. A more concrete task is to determine the index response to a partial alteration of fixed percentage in the frequencies of the multi-species community or collection. Plotting the observed responses or sensitivity values against the frequencies concerned makes possible a good overview of the sensitivity relations. The mathematical groundwork of sensitivity analysis with respect to diversity indices has already been elaborated. To date, however, the methodological possibilities engendered by such analyses have yet to be exploited. In the present work, sensitivity relations are discussed for apple-bait Drosophilidae collections and human faeces trap collections of flies inhabiting brook valleys in the low mountains of Hungary. Inspection of the results enables us to identify the range of frequencies at which significant increases or decreases in diversity will result. A relatively small increase of so-called nearly indifferent or quasineutral frequencies lying within that frequency range has a trivial influence on diversity values. While sensitivity is astonishingly sizeable with a few dominant case numbers, all other frequencies scarcely influence the index value.

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

Print ISSN:: 1585-8553

Online ISSN:: 1588-2756

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Community Ecology
Language	English
Size	A4
Year of Foundation	2000
Volumes per Year	1
Issues per Year	3
Founder	Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's Address	H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245
Publisher	Akadémiai Kiadó Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's Address	H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245. CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible Publisher	Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN	1585-8553 (Print)
ISSN	1588-2756 (Online)