Biological Diversity

Biological Diversity provides an up to date, authoritative review of the methods of measuring and assessing biological diversity, together with their application. The book's emphasis is on quantifying the variety, abundance, and occurrence of taxa, and on providing objective and clear guidance for both scientists and managers. This is a fast-moving field and one that is the focus of intense research interest. However the rapid development of new methods, the inconsistent and sometimes confusing application of old ones, and the lack of consensus in the literature about the best approach, means that there is a real need for a current synthesis. Biological Diversity covers fundamental measurement issues such as sampling, re-examines familiar diversity metrics (including species richness, diversity statistics, and estimates of spatial and temporal turnover), discusses species abundance distributions and how best to fit them, explores species occurrence and the spatial structure of biodiversity, and investigates alternative approaches used to assess trait, phylogenetic, and genetic diversity. The final section of the book turns to a selection of contemporary challenges such as measuring microbial diversity, evaluating the impact of disturbance, assessing biodiversity in managed landscapes, measuring diversity in the imperfect fossil record, and using species density estimates in management and conservation.
"The writing is clear throughout, and chapters end with a prospectus on future directions and a summary of key points. The strength of the volume is Parts III and IV on, respectively, species abundance distributions and aspects of diversity other than abundance. The former, in particular, contains a set of closely connected chapters that walk through the various concepts and metrics with clear guidelines on which of the very many metrics are the most useful." -- Samuel M. Scheiner, Arlington, Virginia

Foreword ; 1. Challenges and Opportunities in Biodiversity Assessment ; PART I - BASIC MEASUREMENT ISSUES ; 2. An Overview of Sampling Issues in Species Diversity and Abundance Surveys ; 3. Biodiversity Monitoring: the Relevance of Detectability ; PART II - DIVERSITY ; 4. Estimating Species Richness ; 5. Measurement of Species Diversity ; 6. Compositional Similarity and Beta Diversity ; 7. Measuring Biological Diversity in Time (and Space) ; PART III - DISTRIBUTION ; 8. Commonness and Rarity ; 9. Species Abundance Distributions ; 10. Fitting and Empirical Evaluation of Models for Species Abundance Distributions ; 11. Species Occurrence and Occupancy ; 12. Measuring the Spatial Structure of Biodiversity ; PART IV - ALTERNATIVE MEASURES OF DIVERSITY ; 13. A Primer of Trait Diversity ; 14. Measuring Phylogenetic Biodiversity ; 15. Genetic Methods for Biodiversity Assessment ; PART V - APPLICATIONS ; 16. Microbial Diversity and Ecology ; 17. Biodiversity and Disturbance ; 18. Measuring Biodiversity in Managed Landscapes ; 19. Estimating Extinction with the Fossil Record ; 20. Estimating Species Density ; PART VI - CONCLUSIONS ; 21. Conclusions ; References ; Index