V. V. Sukhanov, V. E. Zhukov - Estimation of species richness of a community by its species structure, as illustrated by macrophytes of Vityaz Bay, Sea of Japan

BIOLOGIYA MORYA, 2010, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 221-227

Estimation of species richness of a community by its species structure, as illustrated by macrophytes of Vityaz Bay, Sea of Japan

A.V. Zhirmunsky Institute of Marine Biology, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok 690041

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It is supposed in computations that species biomass follows a truncated lognormal distribution. Five methods of computing species richness in community are discussed in the example of a well-studied macrophytic taxocoen: (1) fitting an ogive for lognormal distribution; (2) model fitting of a rank curve for this distribution; (3) iterative computation of statistical moments by Hald's method; (4) computation of these moments by explicit functions; and (5) model fitting of a "species-area" curve. A comparison of computation results for all five methods is given. According to repeatability of results and simplicity of computing, the best method is the computation of statistical moments by explicit functions.

Key words: lognormal distribution, parameter calculation, species biomass, species-area.