Shannon-Weaver Diversity Index

Synonyms

Shannon index; Shannon information index; Shannon-Wiener index

Definition

The Shannon-Weaver diversity index is based on communication theory. The uncertainty is measured by the Shannon Function “H′.” This term is the measure corresponding to the entropy concept defined by

$$ H^{\prime}=-{\displaystyle \sum_{n=1}^n\left({pi}^{*} \ln\ {p}_{\mathrm{i}}\right)} $$

(1)

where H′ is the diversity index, p _i is the proportion of each species in the sample, and ln p _i is the natural logarithm of this proportion (Shannon and Weaver, 1949; Spellerberg and Fedor, 2003; Magurran, 2004).

Description

The Shannon-Weaver diversity index is one widely used index for comparing diversity between various habitats (Clarke and Warwick, 2001). It assumes that individuals are randomly sampled from an independent large population, and all the species are represented in the sample (Shannon and Weaver, 1949). The value of the Shannon-Weaver diversity index usually ranges from 1.5 to 3.5 and only rarely...