Hi,

I need to compare the alpha diversity of three communities (the gut bacteria; the gastro-intestinal helminth community ; the bacteria community found in the spleen of rodents)

For the gut bacteria, I have abundance data

For the two other communities, I hace presence/absence data

Alpha diversity : I was thinking of using richess and Shannon index, for all communities (even the two with presence/absence data only). I know that Shannon index is made for abundance data, but is there any statistical problem in using it for 0/1 data ? It would be a shame to analyse gut bacteria using only presnece/absence data and richness index for all communities...

Beta diversity : I was thinking of using Bray-Curtis distances for all communities. I know that Bray-Curtis is made for abundance data, but is there any statistical problem in using it for 0/1 data ? It would be a shame to analyse gut bacteria using only presence/absence data and Jaccard distance for all communities...

Thanks,

Nathalie