Whittaker Beta Diversity
Compute Whittaker beta diversity betaW = gamma / mean alpha richness from two site species counts and their shared count.
Description
Compute Whittaker beta diversity betaW = gamma / mean alpha richness from two site species counts and their shared count.
Whittaker Beta Diversity is a focused biology tool that compute Whittaker beta diversity betaW = gamma / mean alpha richness from two site species counts and their shared count. It calculates locally from the values you enter and exposes the result without changing the source observations.1
When to use Whittaker Beta Diversity
Use Whittaker Beta Diversity when you need to compute Whittaker beta diversity betaW = gamma / mean alpha richness from two site species counts and their shared count. Enter Shared species, Site A species, and Site B species using the definitions and units below so the result can be reproduced.
- Shared species
- An integer count or setting greater than or equal to 0, expressed in species.
- Site A species
- An integer count or setting greater than or equal to 0, expressed in species.
- Site B species
- An integer count or setting greater than or equal to 0, expressed in species.
How Whittaker Beta Diversity calculates the result
The published tool contract uses this rule: Compute Whittaker beta diversity betaW = gamma / mean alpha richness from two site species counts and their shared count.
- Whittaker beta diversity
- The calculated whittaker beta diversity.
Limitations of Whittaker Beta Diversity
The calculation does not propagate measurement uncertainty, sampling error, or biological and chemical variability.
Alternative or Complementary measurements
Retain the original Shared species, Site A species, and Site B species values and their units alongside the result. Whittaker Beta Pairwise is useful when you instead need to compute pairwise Whittaker beta diversity between two sites as the mean site species richness divided by the number of shared species. Harrison Beta provides another view by helping you compute Harrison's normalized beta-2 turnover for two sites as (S₁ + S₂ - 2C) / (S₁ + S₂), where C is shared richness. The result is zero for identical species sets and one for disjoint sets.
References
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Beta diversity — Wikipedia contributors
Similar or alternative tools
- Whittaker Beta Pairwise
Compute pairwise Whittaker beta diversity between two sites as the mean site species richness divided by the number of shared species.
- Harrison Beta
Compute Harrison's normalized beta-2 turnover for two sites as (S₁ + S₂ - 2C) / (S₁ + S₂), where C is shared richness. The result is zero for identical species sets and one for disjoint sets.
- Fisher Alpha
Solve Fisher's log-series diversity parameter from S = alpha × ln(1 + N/alpha). A finite positive solution exists when the observed species count is smaller than the individual count.