Diversity and interdisciplinarity: how can one distinguish and recombine disparity, variety, and balance?

Abstract

The dilemma which remained unsolved using Rao-Stirling diversity, namely of how variety and balance can be combined into “dual concept diversity” (Stirling in SPRU electronic working paper series no. 28. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Units/spru/publications/imprint/sewps/sewp28/sewp28.pdf, 1998, p. 48f.) can be clarified by using Nijssen et al.’s (Coenoses 13(1):33–38 1998) argument that the Gini coefficient is a perfect indicator of balance. However, the Gini coefficient is not an indicator of variety; this latter term can be operationalized independently as relative variety. The three components of diversity—variety, balance, and disparity—can thus be clearly distinguished and independently operationalized as measures varying between zero and one. The new diversity indicator ranges with more resolving power in the empirical case.