The consensus seems to be that diversity should be zero, but we should consider the larger question before the mechanics of calculating a particular index.
I recently had to deal with a similar question: what is the evenness of a community with zero species?. The consensus among those I discussed this issue with was that evenness (and hence diversity) should be undefined when there are no species. The reason is that diversity or evenness is a property of a community, not a patch of ground or a pot. If there are no species then there is no community, and thus we cannot define evenness. Cheers, Eric -- Eric Lamb Assistant Professor, Plant Ecology and Biostatistics Dept. of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan http://homepage.usask.ca/egl388/index.html 4D68 Agriculture Building 306-966-1799 [email protected]
