Statistics of Species Abundance Distributions in Monitoring Aquatic Communities

摘要

Statistical procedures were established for using species abundance distributions for monitoring pollution impacts in aquatic biological communities. The report synthesizes the statistical theory necessary for conducting inferences with community abundance data. Previous use of species abundance distributions by ecologists has relied on largely ad hoc data analysis procedures. Instead, this report recommends: (1) the sampling distribution be fully specified, and (2) maximum likelihood (ML) techniques for parameter estimation be used. Two particular abundance distributions, the gamma and the lognormal, appear to be useful provided the above recommendations are followed.