Sampling Strategies for the Assessment of

Ecological Diversity
Lorenzo Fattorini
Dipartimento di Metodi Quantitativi,
Universit di Siena,P.za S. Francesco 8, 53100 Siena (Italy)
fattorini@unisi.it

ISSUES
ECOLOGICAL DIVERSITY QUANTIFICATION
ESTIMATION OF DIVERSITY INDEXES
ECOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ORDERING

DESIGN-BASED INFERENCE
no assumptions about the population under study
Design-based inference is objective, nobody can challenge
that the sample was really selected according to the given
sampling design. The probability distribution associated with
the design is real, not modelled or assumed Sarndal et al
(1992)

ECOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
QUANTIFICATION

ECOLOGICAL DIVERSITY (??)

a formal definition is still lacking

traditionally ED relies on the apportionment of abundance (or
related quantities such as biomass or coverage) into the animal or
plant species forming the ecological community under study

ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY (??)

all the organisms in a delineated study area belonging to a taxonomic
group of level higher than species (taxocene, Pielou, 1977, p.269)
e.g.
ecological diversity of the snakes in a delineated tropical area
ecological diversity of the trees in a nature reserve

QUANTIFICATION OF DIVERSITY BY INDEXES

(evenness, dominance and rarity of species)

huge literature
detailed reviews :
Dennis et al, 1979, Magurran, 1988, Frosini, 2003
most relevant contributions
Patil and Taille (1979, 1982) - average rarity diversity indexes
Rao (1982) quadratic entropy

NOTATIONS
A
size of the study area
N
number of individuals in the community (total abundance)
k
number of species in the community (species richness)
number of individuals (abundance) of species l (l 1,, k )
Nl
pl Nl / N relative abundance of species l (l 1,, k )
N N1,, N k T
p p1,, pk T N /(1T N)

abundance vector
relative abundance vector

AVERAGE RARITY DIVERSITY INDEXES

a community is diverse when there is a large number of rare

species (Patil and Taille, 1979,1982)
Rl ( pl ) rarity of species l depending on its relative abundance
k

pl Rl ( pl )
l 1

family is obtained when Rl ( pl ) R( pl ) (1 pl ) / ( 1)

0 (Shannon index)
1 (Simpson index)

RAOS QUADRATIC ENTROPY INDEXES

a diversity index is perfect if splits diversity between and within

subpopulation determined by means of hierarchical classifications of
any order
(Rao, 1982)
Lau (1985)
p T Dp
D dlh , dlh difference (usually in biological sense) between species l
and h
advances: Solow and Polasky (1994, Gores discussion), Champely and
Chessel (2002), Izsak and Szeidl (2002)

ESTIMATION OF DIVERSITY INDEXES

ABUNDANCE ESTIMATION
(p)

(N)

knowledge of requires knowledge of N

knowledge of N requires a census of the ecological community

N is unknown and must be estimated to estimate

(p )

SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING (with replacement)

most papers devoted to estimation of diversity indexes are based on

the assumption that individuals are selected from the community by
means of simple random sampling with replacement

n
xl

number of independent drawings

number of sampled individuals of species l
x x1,, xk T

x MN (n, p)

x minimal sufficient statistic for p

Good (1953), Blyth (1958), Basharin (1959), , Baczkowsky et al

(2000), Chao and Shen (2003)

animals and plants cannot be selected from the populations just

like balls from an urn !!!
Sampling of plant is usually by line traverse or quadrats: sampling of
animals is either by nests or traps or visually along traverses or in
quadrats. For the most usual types of sampling, then, the sampling
distribution of the index of diversity depends, possibly strongly so, on the
spatial distributions and associations of the various species, and the
characteristics of the sampling procedure (Zhal, Ecology, 1977)
Generally, when a population is sampled, the individuals in separate
sampling units (quadrats) are not random or independently drawn from
the parent community (Helthse and Forrester, Biometrics, 1983)

Pielou (1966) was the first to account for the actual field conditions
proposing the estimation of diversity indexes by means of a pooled
quadrat sampling plan.
Heyer and Berven (1973) extended Pielous method to improve
efficiency and to estimate the sampling variance
Zahl (1977) proposed the use of the jackknife in plot sampling in
order to estimate the Simpson index
Heltshe and Bitz (1979), Heltshe and Forrester (1983), Gove et al
(1994) investigated jackknifing procedures in plot sampling by means
of simulation studies or field work

theoretical results of general validity were lacking

Barabesi and Fattorini (1998) give general results on the estimation of

diversity indexes when abundance is estimated by means of plots,
points or transects

SAMPLING ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES

an ecological community on a delineated study area constitutes a

without-frame population of N organisms spread over the area
owing to the lack of frame, the most effective schemes for sampling
ecological populations differ from the traditional ones
their choice is mainly determined by practical considerations on the
nature of the community to be sampled

ENVIRONMENTAL SCHEMES
the selected units are those encountered from points or within plots or
along transects randomly thrown onto the study area
tree communities
shrub communities
animal population

plot sampling , Bitterlich sampling

line intercept sampling
line transect sampling , point transect sampling
(problems related to the elusive behaviour of
animals)

De Vries (1986), Thompson (1992), Schreuder et al. (1993), Overton

and Stehman (1995)

U 1,2,, N

population of N units

S U sample

S family of the possible 2 N samples

Pr( S) S S sampling design

when the population frame is available, the inclusion probabilities

may be determined from the design
when handling with ecological communities, the sampling design is
unknown
the encounter schemes must be strictly ruled to determine (directly
or by field measurements) the first-order inclusion probabilities at
least for the selected units (computation of the Horvitz-Thompson
estimate)

FLOATING PLOT SAMPLING

a point is randomly thrown onto the study area and the selected units
are those included in a circular or square plot of a pre-fixed size a
centered at the sample point

all the inner units have first-order inclusion probability j a / A

edge effects can be removed by suitable modifications of the

sampling scheme (e.g. Gregoire and Valentine, 2008).

FLOATING PLOT SAMPLING

a point is randomly thrown onto the study area and the selected units
are those included in a circular or square plot of a pre-fixed size a
centered at the sample point

all the inner units have first-order inclusion probability j a / A

edge effects can be removed by suitable modifications of the

sampling scheme (e.g. Gregoire and Valentine, 2008).

FLOATING PLOT SAMPLING

a point is randomly thrown onto the study area and the selected units
are those included in a circular or square plot of a pre-fixed size a
centered at the sample point

all the inner units have first-order inclusion probability j a / A

edge effects can be removed by suitable modifications of the

sampling scheme (e.g. Gregoire and Valentine, 2008).

FLOATING PLOT SAMPLING

a point is randomly thrown onto the study area and the selected units
are those included in a circular or square plot of a pre-fixed size a
centered at the sample point

all the inner units have first-order inclusion probability j a / A

edge effects can be removed by suitable modifications of the

sampling scheme (e.g. Gregoire and Valentine, 2008).

BITTERLICH SAMPLING (variable circular plot sampling)

a point is randomly thrown onto the study area and a tree is selected if
its bole at breast high subtends an angle greater than a pre-fixed angle
onto the point

the first order inclusion probability of each tree is proportional to

the bole area at breast height (which can be readily determined in the
field by measuring the bole circumference)

BITTERLICH SAMPLING (variable circular plot sampling)

a point is randomly thrown onto the study area and a tree is selected if
its bole at breast high subtends an angle greater than a pre-fixed angle
onto the point

the first order inclusion probability of each tree is proportional to

the bole area at breast height (which can be readily determined in the
field by measuring the bole circumference)

BITTERLICH SAMPLING (variable circular plot sampling)

a point is randomly thrown onto the study area and a tree is selected if
its bole at breast high subtends an angle greater than a pre-fixed angle
onto the point

the first order inclusion probability of each tree is proportional to

the bole area at breast height (which can be readily determined in the
field by measuring the bole circumference)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed length)

a transect of fixed length is randomly thrown onto the study area and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the perimeter length of the

minimum convex polygon enveloping the unit to the perimeter length
of the minimum convex polygon enveloping the whole area (Kaiser,
1983)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed length)

a transect of fixed length is randomly thrown onto the study area and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the perimeter length of the

minimum convex polygon enveloping the unit to the perimeter length
of the minimum convex polygon enveloping the whole area (Kaiser,
1983)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed length)

a transect of fixed length is randomly thrown onto the study area and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the perimeter length of the

minimum convex polygon enveloping the unit to the perimeter length
of the minimum convex polygon enveloping the whole area (Kaiser,
1983)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed direction)

a transect of fixed direction is randomly thrown onto the baseline and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the ratio of the length of the

shadow cast by the unit onto the baseline to the baseline length (e.g.
Thompson, 2002)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed direction)

a transect of fixed direction is randomly thrown onto the baseline and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the ratio of the length of the

shadow cast by the unit onto the baseline to the baseline length (e.g.
Thompson, 2002)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed direction)

a transect of fixed direction is randomly thrown onto the baseline and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the ratio of the length of the

shadow cast by the unit onto the baseline to the baseline length (e.g.
Thompson, 2002)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed direction)

a transect of fixed direction is randomly thrown onto the baseline and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the ratio of the length of the

shadow cast by the unit onto the baseline to the baseline length (e.g.
Thompson, 2002)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed direction)

a transect of fixed direction is randomly thrown onto the baseline and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the ratio of the length of the

shadow cast by the unit onto the baseline to the baseline length (e.g.
Thompson, 2002)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed direction)

a transect of fixed direction is randomly thrown onto the baseline and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the ratio of the length of the

shadow cast by the unit onto the baseline to the baseline length (e.g.
Thompson, 2002)

LINE INTERCEPT SAMPLING (fixed direction)

a transect of fixed direction is randomly thrown onto the baseline and
the selected units are those intercepted by the transect

the inclusion probability of a unit is the ratio of the length of the

shadow cast by the unit onto the baseline to the baseline length (e.g.
Thompson, 2002)

LINE and POINT TRANSECT SAMPLING

a line or a point is randomly thrown onto the area and the selected
units are those spotted from it

the inclusion probabilities are evaluated on the basis of some

simplifying assumptions adopted to model the sighting process
(Buckland et al, 1993)
inference cannot be considered entirely design-based)

LINE and POINT TRANSECT SAMPLING

a line or a point is randomly thrown onto the area and the selected
units are those spotted from it

the inclusion probabilities are evaluated on the basis of some

simplifying assumptions adopted to model the sighting process
(Buckland et al, 1993)
inference cannot be considered entirely design-based)

LINE and POINT TRANSECT SAMPLING

a line or a point is randomly thrown onto the area and the selected
units are those spotted from it

the inclusion probabilities are evaluated on the basis of some

simplifying assumptions adopted to model the sighting process
(Buckland et al, 1993)
inference cannot be considered entirely design-based)

LINE and POINT TRANSECT SAMPLING

a line or a point is randomly thrown onto the area and the selected
units are those spotted from it

the inclusion probabilities are evaluated on the basis of some

simplifying assumptions adopted to model the sighting process
(Buckland et al, 1993)
inference cannot be considered entirely design-based)

LINE and POINT TRANSECT SAMPLING

a line or a point is randomly thrown onto the area and the selected
units are those spotted from it

the inclusion probabilities are evaluated on the basis of some

simplifying assumptions adopted to model the sighting process
(Buckland et al, 1993)
inference cannot be considered entirely design-based)

LINE and POINT TRANSECT SAMPLING

a line or a point is randomly thrown onto the area and the selected
units are those spotted from it

the inclusion probabilities are evaluated on the basis of some

simplifying assumptions adopted to model the sighting process
(Buckland et al, 1993)
inference cannot be considered entirely design-based)

LINE and POINT TRANSECT SAMPLING

a line or a point is randomly thrown onto the area and the selected
units are those spotted from it

the inclusion probabilities are evaluated on the basis of some

simplifying assumptions adopted to model the sighting process
(Buckland et al, 1993)
inference cannot be considered entirely design-based)

HORVITZ-THOMPSON ESTIMATION
e1,, e k

standard basis of R k

y1,, y N

population vectors

y j el

if individual j belongs to species l

N

y j
j 1

j known at least for each j S

yj

N
HT estimate of N
jS j

VARIANCE ESTIMATION PROBLEMS

unbiased
N
)
V (N

depends on first and second-order inclusion probabilities

determined by characteristics of the ecological community (spatial
distribution of the individuals over the study area)
an unbiased estimator for exists iff the second-order inclusion
probabilities are invariably positive
in encounter schemes individuals that are very far apart cannot be
encountered jointly by the same plot, point or line
cannot be unbiasedly estimated by a unique sample S

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

REPLICATIONS

a study area cannot be adequately sampled using one plot or one

line or one point only
the sampling scheme is independently replicated n times (n plots, lines
or n points randomly and independently thrown onto the study area)

n samples
n estimates

S1,, S n
1,, N
n iid
N

i ) N , V (N
i)
E (N

1 n
N Ni
n i 1

E(N) N , V (N) / n
1 n
i N )T
S
( N i N )( N

n 1i 1

E (S)
central limit theorem

1/ 2

( N N) N k (0, I )

ESTIMATION OF RELATIVE ABUNDANCE

p N /(1T N )
delta method

1/ 2

(p p) N k (0, I )

(I p1T ) (I 1p T ) /(1T N )2

variance-covariance matrix

(I p 1T )S(I 1p T ) /(1T N )2

consistent estimator

the species richness k is often unknown

rare species are not present in the n samples.

SO

number of observed species

N and p are actually SO-vectors plus an unknown number of zeros

( k SO )
N T N1,, N SO ,0,,0

p T p1,, p SO ,0,,0

S and are square matrices of order SO plus zero-matrices of

unknown order

GENERAL RESULTS
( p1,, pk ) ( p1,, pk ,0,,0) ,

estimation does not require the knowledge of k since the missing

species may be ignored when computing (p )
( N ) univariate transformation of the mean of the n iid
1,, N
n
estimates N

g ( x) (x) / x exists in a neighbourhood of p, is non-null and

continuous at p
n

N (0,1)

2 g T g g g (N)

JACKKNIFE (deleting one replication at time)

is asymptotically unbiased but a bias occurs for finite samples

v 2jack

jack

standard results on jackknife (Shao and Tu, 1995):

if 2(x) / xxT exists and is continuous at N

has a O(n 1) asymptotic bias

jack has o(n 1) asymptotic bias
1
v jack
( jack

) N (0,1) .

the result holds for the most familiar diversity indexes

ECOLOGICAL DIVERSITY ORDERING

PROBLEMS

inconsistent rankings : different indexes may lead to different

rankings (Hurlbert,1971)
Gove et al. (1994)
Species
Pinus strobus
Quercus rubra
Tsuga Canadensis
Acer rubrum
Betula papyrifera

C1
0.50
0.30
0.10
0.05
0.05

C2
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.00

C3
0.35
0.35
0.30
0.00
0.00

Shannon index
Simson index

1.24 1.39 1.10

0.65 0.75 0.67

INTRINSIC DIVERSITY ORDERING

(Patil and Taille , 1982)
the community C 2 is intrinsically more diverse than C1 (C1 C2 ) if C 2
is obtained from C1 through a finite sequence of the following
operations:
(a) transferring abundance from more to less abundant species
without reversing the rank-order of the species;
(b) transferring abundance to a new species;
(c) re-labelling the species.

INTRINSIC DIVERSITY ORDERING

(Patil and Taille , 1982)
the community C 2 is intrinsically more diverse than C1 (C1 C2 ) if C 2
is obtained from C1 through a finite sequence of the following
operations:
(a) transferring abundance from more to less abundant species
without reversing the rank-order of the species;
(b) transferring abundance to a new species;
(c) re-labelling the species.

INTRINSIC DIVERSITY PROFILES

Tm - relative abundance of the k m rarest species (T0 1, Tk 0 )
The plotting of Tm versus m gives a profile which turns out to be
convex and decreasing from 1 to 0
1
0,8
0,6
0,4
0,2
0
0

if C1 C2 then the intrinsic diversity profile of C 2 is everywhere above

that of C1
if the two profiles intersect one or more times, no intrinsic ordering of
the two communities is possible
1

0,8

0,8

0,6

0,6

0,4

0,4

0,2

0,2

DIVERSITY PROFILE ESTIMATION

any intrinsic diversity profile T T1,, Tk 1T may be viewed as a
function of N, T t (N)
any intrinsic diversity profile can be estimated by T t ( N )

Fattorini and Marcheselli (1999)

Nl N h l h J (N) 0
(the jacobian matrix of the function t at N exists and differs from the
null matrix)
n

J ( N ) J ( N ) T

1 / 2

(T T) N k 1(0, I )

jackknife procedure is not suitable for estimating T since T jack may

fail to be convex

jack consistent for

jackknife variance estimator V

PROFILE CONFIDENCE BAND

any sample intrinsic diversity profile is obtained by joining the k 1

points (m, Tm ), m 0,, k
any sample intrinsic diversity profile may be viewed as a set of
linear combinations of the component of T
T is asymptotically normal with expectation T and consistent
estimates of its variance-covariance matrix are available

RICHMONDS PROCEDURE (Richmond, 1982)

asymptotically (1 ) conservative confidence band (Fattorini and
Marcheselli, 1999)
the band is bounded from below by joining the (k 1) points
(0,1), (1, L1),, (k 1, Lk 1), (k ,0) and from above by joining
(0,1), (1,U1),, (k 1,U k 1), (k ,0)
Lm Tm k 1, vmm U m Tm k 1, vmm

k 1, - upper 1 quantile of the studentized maximum modulus

distribution with parameter k 1 and degrees of freedom
2
jack
- (m, m) -element of V
vmm

the species richness k, which determines the profile length and the
jack as well as the quantile k 1, , usually constitutes an
order of V
unknown parameter
T is of length SO and V jack is of order SO 1

since SO underestimates k, sample diversity profiles tend to be

shorter than their population counterparts
rule of thumb (conservative): since g , slowly increases with g (the
ratio g 500, / g , 1.2 for g 15) choose k as the maximum
number of species which might be present in the community (no
excessive enlargements of the confidence bands)

HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Patil and Taille (1979): method for assessing hypotheses on diversity
profile
this procedure must be viewed as only an approximate test because it
involves difficult and unresolved questions of simultaneous inference
(Gove et al. , 1994)
Fattorini and Marcheselli (1999): asymptotically conservative
procedure for comparing couples of diversity profiles by means of
some methods previously adopted to make inference on Lorenz curves
(Bishop et al.,1991) - dominance, equivalence and crossing assessment

T1 - C1 profile ; T2 - C 2 profile
H 0 : T1 T2

H1 : T1 T2

H 0 dim(T1) dim(T2 ) k 1
k 1

H0

H 0m

H 0 m : Tm1 Tm2

m 1

1 jack )
T 1 ( n1 replications) variance covariance matrix 1 / n1 ( V
2 jack )
T 2 ( n 2 replications) variance-covariance matrix 2 / n2 ( V

under H 0 and as n1, n2

1/ 2

1 T 2 ) N k 1(0, I )
(T

1 / n1 2 / n2
Zm

Tm1 Tm2
v12mm v22mm

m 1,, k 1

BISHOPet al. (1991) CONSERVATIVE RULE

accept H 0 if Z m k 1, for any m 1,, k 1;
reject H 0 and accept the dominance of T1(T2 ) if there is at least one
significant positive (negative) difference and no significant negative
(positive) differences;
reject H 0 and accept the crossing of the two profiles if there is at least
one significant positive difference and one significant negative
difference

k is unknown

SO1 , SO2 number of species observed in the two communities

Fattorini and Marcheselli (1999)
consider T 1 and T 2 of order max(S 01, S 02 ) (setting at 0 the last
component of the vector with the lower number of observed species)
choose k as the maximum number of species which might be present
in the two communities (conservative critical value k 1, )

Fattorini and Marcheselli

(1999): mutual comparison
of diversity for the avian
populations settled in 11
parks in Milano and Pavia
(Italy).

ADVANCES
Marcheselli (2003, Annals): conservative inference based on a
generalization of the Delta method when Nl N h for some l h (rare
species with unit abundance)

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS - 1
the complete random selection of n points, plots or transects over
the study area (replications) gives rise to straightforward theoretical
results but it is likely to produce unsuitable voids (undetected parts) in
the study area
more complex sampling schemes should be adopted in order to
ensure a systematic search over the study area (e.g aligned and
unaligned systematic sampling pseudo-replications)

 the use of pseudo-replications instead of genuine replications

requires more refined methodological tools, because the estimates
derived from these plots, points or lines cannot be considered equally
distributed and in the aligned case they are even dependent
extension to the diversity index estimation of the results by Barabesi
(2003), Barabesi and Marcheselli (2005, 2008), Gregoire and Valentine
(2008, Chap. 10), Mandallaz (2008, Sec 4.2),

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS 2
Dardanoni and Forcina (1999): generalization of the Bishop et al.
(1991) for comparing more than two Lorenz curves
comparison of more than two intrinsic diversity profiles

REFERENCES
Baczkowski A.J. Joanes D.N. and Shamia G.M. (2000) The distribution of a generalized diversity index due to Good, Environmental and Ecological
Statistics, 7, 329-342.
Barabesi L. (2003) A Monte Carlo integration approach to Horvitz-Thompson estimation in replicated environmental designs, Metron, 61, 355-374.
Barabesi L and Fattorini L (1998) The use of replicated plot, line and point sampling for estimating species abundances and ecological diversity,
Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 5, 353-370.
Barabesi L. and Marcheselli M. (2005) Some large-sample results on a modified Monte Carlo integration method, Journal of Statistical Planning and
Inference 135, 420-432.
Barabesi, L and Marcheselli, M. (2008) Improved strategies for coverage estimation by using replicated line-intercept sampling, Environmental and
Ecological Statistics 15,215-239.
Barabesi L. and Pisani C. (2004) Steady-state ranked set sampling for replicated environmental sampling designs, Environmetrics, 15, 45-56.
Basharin G.P. (1959) On a statistical estimate for the entropy of a sequence of independent random variables Theory of Probability and its
Applications, 4, 333-336.
Bishop J.A., Formby J.P. and Smith W.J. (1991) Lorenz dominance and welfare: changes in the U.S. distribution of income, 1967-1986, The Review of
Economic and Statistics, 73, 134-139.
Blyth C.R. (1958) Note on estimating information, Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 30, 71-79.
Buckland, S.T., Anderson, D.R., Burnham, K.P. and Laake, J.L. (1993) Distance sampling: estimating abundance of biological populations. Chapman
and Hall, London.
Champely S and Chessel D. (2002) Measuring biological diversity using Euclidean metrics, Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 9, 167-177.
Chao A. and Shen T.J. (2003) Nonparametric estimation of Shannons index of diversity when there are unseen species in the sample, Environmental
and Ecological Statistics, 10, 429-443.
Dardanoni V. and Forcina A. (1999) Inference for Lorenz curve orderings, Econometric Journal, 2, 49-75.
De Vries P.G. (1986) Sampling Theory for Forest Inventories, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Dennis B, Patil G.P., Rossi O., Stheman S and Taille C. (1979) A bibliography of literature on ecological diversity and related methodology. In
Ecological Diversity in Theory and Practice, J.F. Grassle, G.P. Patil, W. Smith and C. Taille (Eds.), International Co-operative Publishing House,
Fairland (MD), 319-354.
Fattorini L. and Marcheselli M. (1999) Inference on intrinsic diversity profiles of biological populations, Environmetrics, 10, 589-599.
Frosini B.V. (2003) Descriptive measures of ecological diversity. In Environmetrics, A.H. El-Shaarawi and J. Jureckova (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Life
Support Systems (EOLSS), EOLSS Publishers, Oxford (UK) (http://www.eolss.net).
Gove J.H., Patil G.P., Swindel B.F. and Taille C. (1994) Ecological diversity and forest management, In Handbook of Statistics, Vol 12
(Environmental Statistics), G.P. Patil and C.R. Rao (Eds.), Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 409-462.

Gregoire, T.G., and Valentine, H.T. (2008) Sampling Strategies for Natural Resources and the Environment. Chapman & Hall, New York
Good l.J. (1953) The population frequencies of species and the estimation of population parameters Biometrika, 49, 237-264
Heltshe J.F. and Bitz D.V. (1979) Comparing diversity measures in sampled communities, In Ecological Diversity in Theory and Practice, J.F.
Grassle, G.P. Patil, W. Smith and C. Taille (Eds.), International Co-operative Publishing House, Fairland (MD), 133-144.
Heltshe J.F. and Forrester N.E. (1983) Estimating diversity using quadrat sampling, Biometrics, 39, 1073-1076.
Heyer R.V. and Berven K.A. (1973) Species diversity of herpetofaunal samples from similar microhabitats at two tropical sites, Ecology, 54, 642-645.
Hurlbert S.H. (1971) The nonconcept of species diversity: a critique and alternative parameters, Ecology, 52, 577-586.
Izsak J. and Szeidl L.(2002) Quadratic diversity: its maximization can reduce the richness of species, Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 9,423430.
Kaiser L.(1983) Unbiased estimation in line-intercept sampling, Biometrics, 39, 965-976.
Lau K.S. (1985) Characterization of Raos quadratic entropies, Sankhya, A 47, 295-309.
Magurran A.E. (1988) Ecological Diversity and its Measurement, Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ).
Mandallaz, D. (2008) Sampling Techniques for Forest Inventories, Chapman & Hall, New York.
Marcheselli M. (2003) Asymptotic results in jackknifing nonsmooth functions of the sample mean vector, The Annals of Statistics, 31, 1885-1904.
Overton W.S. and Stehman S.V. (1995) The Horvitz-Thompson theorem as a unifying perspective for probability sampling with examples from natural
resource sampling, The American Statistician, 49, 261-268.
Patil G.P. and Taille C. (1979) An overview of diversity. In Ecological Diversity in Theory and Practice, J.F. Grassle, G.P. Patil, W. Smith and C.
Taille (Eds), International Co-operative Publishing House, Fairland (MD), 3-27.
Patil G.P. and Taille C. (1979) A study of diversity profiles and ordering for a bird community in the vicinity of Colstrip, Montana, in Contemporary
Quantitative Ecology and Related Econometrics, G.P. Patil and M. Rosenzweig (Eds.), International Co-operative Publishing House, Fairland
(MD), 23-48.
Patil G.P. and Taille C. (1982) Diversity as a concept and its measurement, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 77, 548-567.
Pielou E.C. (1966) The measurement of diversity in different types of biological collections, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 13, 131-144.
Pielou E.C. (1977) Mathematical Ecology, Wiley, New York.
Rao C.R. (1982) Diversity and dissimilarity coefficients: a unified approach, Theoretical Population Biology, 21, 24-43.
Richmond J. (1982) A general method for constructing simultaneous confidence intervals, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 77, 455460.
Srndal, C.E., Swensson, B., & Wretman, J. (1992). Model Assisted Survey Sampling. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Schreuder H.T., Gregoire T.G. and Wood G. (1993) Sampling Methods for Multiresources Forest Inventories, Wiley, New York.
Shao J. and Tu D. (1995) The Jackknife and the Bootstrap, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Solow A.R. and Polasky S. (1994) Measuring ecological diversity, Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 1, 95-107.
Thompson S.K. (1992) Sampling, Wiley, New York.
Thompson, S.K. (2002). Sampling.2nd edition, Wiley, New York
Zahl S. (1977) Jackknifing an index of diversity, Ecology, 58, 907-913.