Whittaker Beta Pairwise
Compute pairwise Whittaker beta diversity between two sites as the mean site species richness divided by the number of shared species.
Description
Compute pairwise Whittaker beta diversity between two sites as the mean site species richness divided by the number of shared species.
Whittaker Beta Pairwise is a focused biology tool that compute pairwise Whittaker beta diversity between two sites as the mean site species richness divided by the number of shared species. It calculates locally from the values you enter and exposes the result without changing the source observations.1
When to use Whittaker Beta Pairwise
Use Whittaker Beta Pairwise when you need to compute pairwise Whittaker beta diversity between two sites as the mean site species richness divided by the number of shared species. Enter Site A species, Site B species, and Shared species using the definitions and units below so the result can be reproduced.
- Site A species
- An integer count or setting greater than or equal to 1, expressed in species.
- Site B species
- An integer count or setting greater than or equal to 1, expressed in species.
- Shared species
- An integer count or setting greater than or equal to 0, expressed in species.
How Whittaker Beta Pairwise calculates the result
The published tool contract uses this rule: Compute pairwise Whittaker beta diversity between two sites as the mean site species richness divided by the number of shared species.1
- Pairwise Whittaker beta
- The calculated pairwise whittaker beta.
Limitations of Whittaker Beta Pairwise
A ratio or percentage can conceal the scale of its numerator and denominator and becomes sensitive to measurement error when the denominator is small.
Alternative or Complementary measurements
Retain the original Site A species, Site B species, and Shared species values and their units alongside the result. Whittaker Beta Diversity is useful when you instead need to compute Whittaker beta diversity betaW = gamma / mean alpha richness from two site species counts and their shared count. 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 Diversity
Compute Whittaker beta diversity betaW = gamma / mean alpha richness from two site species counts and their shared count.
- 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.
- Hill Number N0
Return the Hill number of order zero, which equals species richness and therefore passes the species count through unchanged.