Diversity Index Analysis Tool

Data Analysis Tool

Real Statistics Data Analysis Tool: The Real Statistics Resource Pack provides a data analysis tool called Diversity Indices, which calculates Shannon’s, Brillouin’s, and Simpson’s diversity indices.

Example

For example, we can use this tool for Example 1 of Simpson’s Diversity Index, where the data from that example is displayed in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Frequency data

Press Ctrl-m and select the Diversity Indices option from the main dialog box (or from the Desc tab on the multipage interface). Next fill in the dialog box that appears as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Diversity Indices dialog box

Note that for Shannon’s and Brillouin’s indices, we have a choice of the base of the logarithm to use. The Real Statistics data analysis tool allows you to choose any integer between 2 and 12 or e for log base e. After pressing the OK button, the output in Figure 3 is displayed.

Figure 3 – Output from the Diversity Indices data analysis tool

Note that the output for Simpson’s indices shown in range M8:O11 of Figure 1 of Simpson’s Diversity Index is the same as that shown in Figure 3. The output for Shannon’s index shown in range J8:J11 is the same as that shown in range B8:B10 of Figure 1 of Shannon’s Diversity Index except that the indices must be multiplied by 2.303, which is LN(10) since the indices for Example 1 are base 10 while the base chosen in the dialog box of Figure 2 is base e. The values for homogeneity are the same.

Examples Workbook

Click here to download the Excel workbook with the examples described on this webpage.

References

Krebs, C. J. (2014) Species diversity measures
https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~krebs/downloads/krebs_chapter_13_2017.pdf

Wikipedia (2016) Diversity index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_index

Offwell Woodland & Wildlife Trust (2016) Simpson’s diversity index. Ecological sampling methods
http://www.countrysideinfo.co.uk/simpsons.htm