A mathematical investigation of Rao diversity coefficients among the communities according to species morphometry and species taxonomy

摘要

Although Rao diversity coefficient (Rao DIVC) is sensitive to the differences among species, a gap still remains in investigating how the communities are affected when the dissimilarity among the species are in terms of its morphometry and taxonomy. I studied the effect of using species taxonomic classification and species morphometrical traits in the computation of Rao DIVC in assessing diversity of ecological communities. I utlised the Mahalanobis distance for measuring the variation of species morphometry. As for species taxonomy, I employed the method by Warwick and Clarke (1995). When the calculated Rao DIVCs, double principal coordinate analysis and co-inertia analysis outputs were compared, I discovered that Rao DIVCs accounting species morphometry ( R_(sm) ) and species taxonomy ( R_(st) ) yielded different results and interpretation. R_(sm) clearly showed more the variation among communities but contributed less in the analysis, whereas R_(st) showed more clearly the clusters between the communities which make the interpretation easier.