A comparative analysis of biodiversity measures

Abstract

The concept of biodiversity has received rapidly increasing interest in the biosciences during the last decade. Yet, it is unclear and disputed how biodiversity should be characterised and measured. We compared several biodiversity measures by applying them to data retrieved from the LindEvol-GA model of evolution. A series of LindEvol-GA runs with mutation ranges ranging from zero (producing no diversity) to one (producing maximal, but biologically meaningless, diversity) was analyzed with the measures to be compared. At intermediate mutation rates, biologically meaningful diversity can emerge. We show that biodiversity measures can be classified according to the way in which they respond to these various types of diversity, and we discuss some implications of our observation for the design, choice, and application of biodiversity measures.