Biodiversity Data

How Biodiversity Data Products are Created

Data displayed on the MBON portal are being displayed via the browser of the user. The data displayed are aggregated based on the focus and size of the map. More details about the map can be found in How-to: Maps. More details about the data charts ability of the portal can be found in How-to Data Views.

Calculating Biodiversity Indices

The following biodiversity indices are available for datasets that include sample/collection eventid and species identifier (scientific name, common name, ITIS TSN, or WoRMS Aphia ID). Indices are calculated at a local and regional scales (alpha and gamma diversity, respectively).

• Richness: The number of distinct species in a sample.

• Dominance (Berger-Parker): The numerical importance of the most abundant species.

• Evenness (Pielou’s): A quantification of how equal the species counts are within a sample or region.

• Shannon-Wiener Index/Diversity: An index that accounts for both abundance and evenness of the species present.