In brief, both curve can be (and is for) used to see the completeness of sampling and the rarefaction is to compare different sampling units (plots or regions). Individual based rarefaction is when you are comparing two samples or more. But sample based can be used to compare sampling completeness or richness between two or more regions (or two or more transects with several sampling units). if you have presence absence data, then you can not use individual based rarefaction.

For more detailed and good explanation see the pdf at - http://www.uvm.edu/~ngotelli/manuscriptpdfs/Chapter%204.pdf

Good Luck

We used species species richness estimators to analyse data from forests of two different management types in order to optimize our cultivation approaches. We also analysed species-plot relationships.

I hope this may help you:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51587009_Species_accumulation_curves_and_incidence-based_species_richness_estimators_to_appraise_the_diversity_of_cultivable_yeasts_from_beech_forest_soils?ev=prf_pub

Article Species Accumulation Curves and Incidence-Based Species Rich...

In brief, both curve can be (and is for) used to see the completeness of sampling and the rarefaction is to compare different sampling units (plots or regions). Individual based rarefaction is when you are comparing two samples or more. But sample based can be used to compare sampling completeness or richness between two or more regions (or two or more transects with several sampling units). if you have presence absence data, then you can not use individual based rarefaction.

For more detailed and good explanation see the pdf at - http://www.uvm.edu/~ngotelli/manuscriptpdfs/Chapter%204.pdf

Good Luck

Dear Andrey Yurkov

I really appreciate for your help. your paper very help me.

I hope you good lock always.

A very nice review of the issue you will find here:

Gotelli, Nicholas J., and Robert K. Colwell. 2001. “Quantifying Biodiversity: Procedures and Pitfalls in the Measurement and Comparison of Species Richness.” Ecology Letters 4 (4): 379–91. doi:10.1046/j.1461-0248.2001.00230.x.

Dear Levan Mumladze

Your opinion really helped me and your reference was really great.

now I have a new question.

I have the number of individual in each sample, in your view I can used from individual based rarefaction?

and who I can assess the accumulation curves evidence for showing an asymptote?

Is there a special way?

Thank you for help.

Best Regards

Dear Dimitrios Samaras

I really tank you for your help. its good reference and was great help for me.

I Hope always good luck.

Dear Reza

To my knowledge there is no exact way to decide when curve flattening can be considered as an asymptote (which in strict sense means that curve do not grow any more and runs parallel to respective axis) for sampling data. Usually curves is growing upward at the start and then starts to flatten. In your case it does not matter because you have already done sampling and you can just show a picture how well your sampling describes local diversity or compare one sample completeness to another.

You can extrapolate your curve beyond your data and report e.g. how many additional species are expected after doubling of sampling effort.

Dear Levan

I really tank you for your help. its was great help for me.

Best regards.

Dear Haile

Forget not matter, Thank you for everything.

Good luck

Species accumulation curves show he rate at which new species are found within a community, and can be used for estimating species richness. They generally move from left to right and will appear jagged. Species rarefaction curves I believe are used to estimate number of species at a particular level or reduced level of sampling, and are thus able to compare different or unequal sampling strategies. They generally move from right to left and because of averaging used appear smooth. Both lines can be obtained from the same dataset. Have a look at "Estimating species richness" by Gotelli and Colwell in http://www.uvm.edu/~ngotelli/manuscriptpdfs/Chapter%204.pdf

Dear Bertt Abbott

I really tank you for your help. its good reference and was great help for me.

I Hope after this I'll use your view.

best regards

There are lot of references on this tern. You may also need to read reference of :

Colwell, R. K., C. X. Mao, and J. Chang. 2004. Interpolating, extrapolating, and comparing incidence-based species accumulation curves. Ecology 85:2717-2727.

Colwell (Colwell, R. K. 2013. EstimateS: Statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples,Version 9. User's Guide and application published at: http://purl.oclc.org/estimates developed a model to calculate a mean species accumulation curve. It is free.

Dear You-xin Shen

I really tank you for your help.

I Hope after this I'll use your view.

best regards

In my experience, one of the more informative uses for accumulation (or rarefaction) curves is a search for breaks (steep rises and flat spots), which indicate transitions to potentially new environmental gradients. These transition points, when your are moving from low Beta diversity (or low species turnover) to high Beta (rapid accumulation) zones can reveal levels and scales of heterogeneity. See the attached figure. In contrast, a very smooth curve, as typically portrayed, implies that you have not moved to a different (or steeper) environmental gradient.

Dear George Robinson

I really tank you for description and your schematic file. if your study have a output paper, I can refer its, and very help me.

I Hope after this I'll use your view.

Good Luck

Species accumulation curves (or collector’s curves) are used to estimate the number of species (i.e. species richness) in a particular area. A species accumulation curve records the total number of species observed, during the process of data collection, as additional individuals are added to the pool of all previously observed or collected individuals or samples. Accumulation curves may be either individual-based or sample-based.

A species rarefaction curve answers the question "how many species would a smaller sample include? Say you had two samples, 'A' with 100 individuals total and those 100 individuals distributed among 9 species and sample 'B' with 25 individuals distributed among 4 species. Rarefaction answers the question "How many species would I expect in sample A if I had caught only 25 individuals in all instead of 100?" The species diversity of two samples, containing 100 and 25 individuals respectively, can be compared directly by rarefying the larger sample down to 25 individuals.

https://chao.shinyapps.io/iNEXTOnline/ allows you to calculate coverage based curves using either abundance or incidence data, and demonstrates some of the papers already helpfully submitted. The user guide tells you how to compile the data. It calculates Hill numbers and displays diversity as effective number of species against the values of q, where q=0 is your species richness.

The previous answers cover most points, except that we now know that rarefaction or extrapolation based upon sample size (as measured by either individuals or samples, such as quadrats) is biased and inefficient. The bias is because species-poor places are better documented by a given sample size than are species-rich places. The solution is to use rarefaction or extrapolation based upon coverage rather than number of individuals or samples. I recommend Chao & Jost: Coverage-based rarefaction and extrapolation: standardizing samples

by completeness rather than size, Ecology, 93(12), 2012, pp. 2533–2547.

basically, the rarefaction curve is an average of all possible species

accumulation curves

Rarefaction allows one to compare samples with different numbers of individuals. I cover it here: Article Sampling Biological Communities