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

Authors: Kenneth Barroga

Addresses: Department of Science and Technology, Regional No. 11, Bajada, Davao City, Philippines

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: double principal coordinate analysis; DPCoA; Mahalanobis distance; Rao diversity coefficient; Rao DIVC; co-inertia analysis; COIA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMOR.2018.092109

International Journal of Mathematics in Operational Research, 2018 Vol.12 No.4, pp.542 - 564

Received: 26 Sep 2016
Accepted: 27 Nov 2016
Published online: 04 Jun 2018 *

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