Properties of evenness indices according to their relationship with communitary attributes

Abstract

There are several evenness indices, for which several attributes have been proposed in the past, being independent of richness the main property. However, some other properties of the evenness indices may not have been explicitly described. We evaluated two data sets from field samplings, 89 community samples corresponded to different taxonomic groups. Subsequently, a Spearman correlation analysis was performed between six evenness indices and three community attributes (richness, rare species, and dominant species), finding a negative correlation between all the indices and all community attributes (p<.05). It is concluded that the evenness indices are not independent of richness but show a negative correlation with rare and dominant species. The latter is an attribute that every evenness index should engage. These results can be helpful in the choice and application of evenness indices and the framework of data analysis for conducting environmental impact assessments or in conservation biology studies.