New method reveals hidden diversity in ecosystems, revolutionizing biodiversity analysis.
The article introduces a new way to analyze biodiversity called evenness-richness scatter plots. Instead of using a single number to measure diversity, this method separates richness (number of different species) and evenness (how evenly distributed they are) on a graph. By doing this, researchers can see differences between communities that have the same diversity index. Statistical tests can then be used to find significant variations between groups of samples. This approach helps detect important differences in biodiversity that might have been missed before.