Shopping for Ecological Indices? On the Use of Incidence-Based Species Compositional Similarity Measures

Abstract

β-diversity has been under continuous debate, with a current need to better understand the way in which a new wave of measures work. We assessed the results of 12 incidence-based β-diversity indices. Our results of gradual species composition overlap between paired assemblages considering progressive differences in species richness show the following: (i) four indices (β-2, β-3, β-3.s, and βr) should be used cautiously given that results with no shared species retrieve results that could be misinterpreted; (ii) all measures conceived specifically as partitioned components of species compositional dissimilarities ought to be used as such and not as independent measures per se; (iii) the non-linear response of some indices to gradual species composition overlap should be interpreted carefully, and further analysis using their results as dependent variables should be performed cautiously; and (iv) two metrics (βsim and βsor) behave predictably and linearly to gradual species composition overlap. We encourage ecologists using measures of β-diversity to fully understand their mathematical nature and type of results under the scenario to be used in order to avoid inappropriate and misleading inferences.

Temperature dissimilarity drives flower–visitor interaction turnover across elevation in the Mexican Transition Zone

“…Having obtained the values of β jac and its components β sp and β ne, we tested whether there were differences between the components across the gradient using a linear mixed model where the fixed factor was the beta diversity components ( β sp and β ne ) and the random effect was the pairwise comparison; in total, we had 18 values (9 corresponding to β sp and 9 to β ne ) from nine comparisons. We implemented a mixed‐effects model because the components of beta diversity were derived from one measure and therefore were not independent (MacGregor‐Fors et al, 2022). We obtained the significance of the mixed‐effects models by Wald χ 2 tests.…”

“…We implemented a mixed-effects model because the components of beta diversity were derived from one measure and therefore were not independent (MacGregor-Fors et al, 2022). We obtained the significance of the mixed-effects models by Wald χ 2 tests.…”

Analysis of Diversity of Pest Species of Anastrepha1 in ‘Barranqueño’ Mango (Mangifera indica L.)

“…Beta diversity (βSOR) for multiple sites was analyzed by Baselga (2010Baselga ( , 2012) methodology, differentiating causes of diversity by estimating differences between spatial rotation (βSIM) and nesting (βNES) of species (MacGregor-Fors et al 2022). R studio 4.1.2 software (R Core Team 2023) was used for statistical analysis.…”

Patterns of Forest Species Association in a Broadleaf Forest in Romania

“…Various quantitative methods have been developed to assess the ecological resemblance [2] between sites or species composition patterns. Indices of co-occurrence or pairwise association for binary presence-absence data are among the first used and still very popular in assessing ecological resemblance [6][7][8][9]. Researchers use association or co-occurrence metrics on pairs of entities to establish whether their presence is linked or independent and to estimate resemblances or dissimilarities among different data sets.…”

“…There are more than 80 association indices based on binary data [6,7], and selecting an appropriate one may be provoking. However, most studies orbit around the same indices, and the many reviews and comparisons [7,8,11,14,[16][17][18][19] facilitate the selection of the right index [10,13,15,16].…”