Logseriesbirds: Species abundance distribution
In gpk: 100 Data Sets for Statistics Education

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4. One approach to biodiversity measurement is fitting a distribution to species abundance data. In the present case data on abundance of different species is recorded at two Indian localities in western-ghats (Arvind and Dhoni). These data are said to be 'Frequency of frequency'. Here 14 species were encountered only once. There were 9 species such that exactly two individuals of each species were seen etc. Some ecological considerations suggest that a log-series distribution should fit the data. Parameter of the log-series distribution (called Fisher's $alpha$) is taken as indicator of diversity. Higher the value of parameter, higher is the diversity.