Title

Shopping for Ecological Indices? On the Use of Incidence-Based Species Compositional Similarity Measures

Author

IAN MACGREGOR FORS

FEDERICO ESCOBAR SARRIA

JUAN FERNANDO ESCOBAR IBAÑEZ

NATALIA MESA SIERRA

FREDY ALEXANDER ALVARADO ROBERTO

Rafael Rueda Hernández

CLAUDIA ELIZABETH MORENO ORTEGA

Ina Falfán

ERICK JOAQUIN CORRO MENDEZ

Eduardo Octavio Pineda Arredondo

Amandine Bourg

JOSE LUIS AGUILAR LOPEZ

Access level

Open Access

Alternative identifier

doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/d14050384

Summary or description

"β-diversity has been under continuous debate, with a current need to better understand the way in which a new wave of measures work. We assessed the results of 12 incidence-based β-diversity indices. Our results of gradual species composition overlap between paired assemblages considering progressive differences in species richness show the following: (i) four indices (β-2, β-3, β-3.s, and βr) should be used cautiously given that results with no shared species retrieve results that could be misinterpreted; (ii) all measures conceived specifically as partitioned components of species compositional dissimilarities ought to be used as such and not as independent measures per se; (iii) the non-linear response of some indices to gradual species composition overlap should be interpreted carefully, and further analysis using their results as dependent variables should be performed cautiously; and (iv) two metrics (βsim and βsor) behave predictably and linearly to gradual species composition overlap. We encourage ecologists using measures of β-diversity to fully understand their mathematical nature and type of results under the scenario to be used in order to avoid inappropriate and misleading inferences."

Publisher

MDPI

Publish date

2022

Publication type

Article

Publication version

Published Version

Format

application/pdf

Citation suggestion

MacGregor-Fors, I.; Escobar, F.; Escobar-Ibáñez, J.F.; Mesa-Sierra, N.; Alvarado, F.; Rueda-Hernández, R.; Moreno, C.E.; Falfán, I.; Corro, E.J.; Pineda, E.; Bourg, A.; Aguilar-López, J.L.; Dáttilo, W. Shopping for Ecological Indices? On the Use of Incidence-Based Species Compositional Similarity Measures. Diversity 2022, 14, 384. https://doi.org/10.3390/d14050384

Source repository

Repositorio IPICYT

Downloads

5

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