Nicolas,
Why would you restrict your interest to the flow of energy, and not
include the flow of material, such as a nutrient like fixed nitrogen, or
potassium?
Martin M. Meiss
2012/9/27 Katharine Miller <[email protected]>
> Hi,
>
> I wanted to thank everyone for their responses and recommendations. Some
> of
> them were quite helpful and have got me thinking in new ways.
>
> With respect to the use of the Rao index, I didn't express my question very
> well. What I was really trying to discern was whether it was appropriate to
> use the Rao index values as a distance matrix of functional dissimilarity
> between estuaries that could then be evaluated using standard multivariate
> methods (i.e. clustering). I have not seen Shannon entropy used this way
> either, but it is understood that pairwise beta diversity calculated by
> either of these approaches is a measure of dissimilarity between sites. So,
> on that basis, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch. Also, the index
> values
> are used as dissimilarities in Mantel tests or other matrix calculations.
>
> I am not sure whether the reason these indices have not been used this way
> is because it would be inappropriate statistically or mathematically, or
> whether there is some ecological reason for not doing it.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> - Katharine
>
>
>
