Traditionally, biodiversity has often been estimated on the basis of abundance partly due to the need for complicated measurements of biomass. Here, we conducted robust measurements of the community composition and of the size structure of diatoms in the North Pacific to evaluate the importance of biomass on the biodiversity. We found that the two most useful evenness indices increased in most ...

ABSTRACT Estimation of genotypic diversity is an important component of the analysis of the genetic structure of plant pathogen and microbial populations. Estimates of genotypic diversity are a function of both the number of genotypes observed in a sample (genotype richness) and the evenness of distribution of genotypes within the sample. Currently used measures of genotypic diversity have inhe...

Ecological networks are known to influence ecosystem attributes, but we poorly understand how interspecific network structure affect population demography of multiple species, particularly for vertebrates. Establishing the link between network structure and demography is at the crux of being able to use networks to understand population dynamics and to inform conservation. We addressed the crit...

Among the most popular of metrics used to quantify landscape composition are Shannon’s index, believed to emphasize the richness component of diversity, and Simpson’s index, emphasizing the evenness component. These indices can show considerable variation in response to changes in landscape richness and evenness. However, the possibility of encountering opposite trends in the responses of these...

Anthropogenic activities have accelerated the rate of global loss of biodiversity, making it more important than ever to understand the structure of biodiversity hotspots. One current focus is the relationship between species richness and aboveground biomass (AGB) in a variety of ecosystems. Nonetheless, species diversity, evenness, rarity, or dominance represent other critical attributes of bi...

Trait-based theories of biodiversity consider interspecific tradeoffs among species-specific traits as prerequisites to maintaining community evenness, a component of species diversity. Such tradeoffs are commonly observed in plant communities, particularly in relation to traits associated with resistance to herbivory. Indeed, global experiments show that interspecific tradeoffs are common betw...

Evolutionary history can exert a profound influence on ecological communities, but few generalities have emerged concerning the relationships among phylogeny, community membership, and niche evolution. We compared phylogenetic community structure and niche evolution in three lizard clades (Ctenotus skinks, agamids, and diplodactyline geckos) from arid Australia. We surveyed lizard communities a...

Inorganic fertilization and mowing alter soil factors with subsequent effects-direct and indirect - on above- and below-ground communities. We explored direct and indirect effects of long-term fertilization (N, P, NPK, Liming) and twice yearly mowing on the plant, bacterial and fungal communities and soil factors. We analyzed co-variation using 16S and 18S rRNA genes surveys, and plant frequenc...

The dune system of Lake Michigan at Sturgeon Bay leads back thousands of years into the surrounding forest and intermittently form small pools in the swales of the dunes. Maintained by rainwater and including a unique composition of species and chemistry, the pools of the dunes and the surrounding terrestrial life show a pattern of diversity unique to dune swales. Percent cover of species at fo...

The aim of this work was to determine the composition of the fish assemblage of Passa Cinco stream and verify changes in their structure on the altitudinal gradient. Six samples were performed at five different sites in Passa Cinco stream (from the headwater, at order two, to its mouth, at order six), using an electric fishery equipment and gill nets in May, July, September and November of 2005...