Species evenness

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Species evenness is a diversity index, a measure of biodiversity which quantifies how equal the populations are numerically. So if there are 40 foxes, and 1000 dogs, the population is not very even. But if there are 40 foxes and 42 dogs, the population is quite even. The evenness of a population can be represented by Pielou's evenness index:

E={ H^\prime \over H_\max },

Where H' is the number derived from the Shannon - Weiner diversity index and H' max is the total number of species found. which is constrained between 0 and 1. The less variation in populations between the species, the higher E is. Other indices have been proposed by authors where H'min>0 eg. Hurlburt's evenness index


See diversity index.

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