I think your after something called the Biodiversity Index;.

One practical work sheet example is here

http://ww2.mdsg.umd.edu/interactive_lessons/biofilm/diverse.htm

Alessandro

I looked at papers by Costanza and DeGroot especially in Ecological Indicators but they seemed to be more associated with Ecosystem services accounting than actual measurement of biodiversity.

G.Bothun

I thank you for the access to the paper from Maryland and indeed this seems more like I was looking for but surely there is more to Biodiversity Species Richness (the least informative index!) and Evenness/Dominance (Simpson-Shannon). What about biomass/population and the relative rarity of the species? could not the accuracy of the species richness be indicated?

Best wishes and thank you both

alan

Alan,

Could you precise your question?

What type of biodiversity would you like to relate to Ecosystem Services? Do you make reference to the diversity of life systems supporting ES? Estimates of species diversity (richness, density, rarity...)? Biodiversity could also be a diversity of life forms and thus different functional types.

The type of biodiversity with links to ES will be different for different ES?

As an example, the production of biomass used for fodder may be related to the biomass related of species for the quantitative estimate of ecosystem capacity, while the diversity of species and life forms may be related to the stability in time of the provision of the biomass.

As to come back to your question, the variability refers to diversity that can be accounted for at different levels of organisation (genes, individuals, species, communities and sometimes Ecosystems or landscapes).

You could have a look at this link : http://biodiversity.ca.gov/Biodiversity/biodiv_def2.html

For usual indices, I recommand the book of Magguran A.E. (1988) Ecological diversity and its measurement. Princeton University Press, Priceton, USA.

Best,

Philip