title: Attenuation of species abundance distributions by sampling.
abstract: Quantifying biodiversity aspects such as species presence/ absence, richness and abundance is an important challenge to answer scientific and resource management questions. In practice, biodiversity can only be assessed from biological material taken by surveys, a difficult task given limited time and resources. A type of random sampling, or often called sub-sampling, is a commonly used technique to reduce the amount of time and effort for investigating large quantities of biological samples. However, it is not immediately clear how (sub-)sampling affects the estimate of biodiversity aspects from a quantitative perspective. This paper specifies the effect of (sub-)sampling as attenuation of the species abundance distribution (SAD), and articulates how the sampling bias is induced to the SAD by random sampling. The framework presented also reveals some confusion in previous theoretical studies.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Biological Diversity and Scottish Oceans Institute , University of St Andrews , Dyers Brae House, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9TH, UK ; Geoscience Australia , GPO Box 378 , Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Hideyasu
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0919-8829
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shimadzu
authors.affiliation: The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation , PO Box 2583, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia.
authors.forename: Ross
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7973-6322
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Darnell
keywords: biodiversity estimation; marine surveys; rarefaction; richness; sampling; species presence/absence