Nicolas, Why would you restrict your interest to the flow of energy, and not include the flow of material, such as a nutrient like fixed nitrogen, or potassium?
Martin M. Meiss 2012/9/27 Katharine Miller <kmill...@alaska.edu> > Hi, > > I wanted to thank everyone for their responses and recommendations. Some > of > them were quite helpful and have got me thinking in new ways. > > With respect to the use of the Rao index, I didn't express my question very > well. What I was really trying to discern was whether it was appropriate to > use the Rao index values as a distance matrix of functional dissimilarity > between estuaries that could then be evaluated using standard multivariate > methods (i.e. clustering). I have not seen Shannon entropy used this way > either, but it is understood that pairwise beta diversity calculated by > either of these approaches is a measure of dissimilarity between sites. So, > on that basis, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch. Also, the index > values > are used as dissimilarities in Mantel tests or other matrix calculations. > > I am not sure whether the reason these indices have not been used this way > is because it would be inappropriate statistically or mathematically, or > whether there is some ecological reason for not doing it. > > Thanks again. > > - Katharine > > >