Rank-Abundance Curves

We can also portray the relative abundance and diversity of species within a community by plotting the relative
abundance of species against their rank in abundance. The resulting rank-abundance curve provides us with
important information about a community, information accessible at a glance. Figure 16.6 plots the abundance
rank of each tree species in communities a and b (see fig. 16.5) against its proportional abundance. The rankabundance curve for community b shows that all five species are equally abundant, while the rankabundance curve for community a shows its dominance by the most abundant tree species.

FIGURE 16.6 Rank-abundance curves or two hypothetical forests.

Now let's examine the more realistic differences shown by the rank-abundance curves for two actual
animal communities. Figure 16.7 shows rank-abundance curves for the Trichoptera (insects
called caddisflies that have an aquatic larval stage) emerging from two kinds of aquatic habitat in
northern Portugal. The trichopteran community in coastal ponds at Mira contains about 18 species, while the
mountain stream community at Relva includes 79 species. In addition, a few abundant species dominate the
coastal pond community, while the mountain stream community shows a more even distribution of individuals
among species. This difference in species evenness is shown by the much steeper rank-abundance curve for the
coastal pond community.

FIGURE 16.7 Rank-abundance curves for caddisflies, order Trichoptem, of two aquatic habitats in
northern Portugal (data courtesy of L S. W. Terra).
Two reef fish communities from the Gulf of California provide a more subtle contrast in rank-abundance
patterns. The reef fish communities yielded approximately similar numbers of species (52 versus 57) but
differed substantially in species evenness. The community of the central Gulf of California showed a more
even distribution of individuals among species. This greater evenness is depicted in figure 16.8, which shows
that after about the tenth most abundant species, the rank-abundance curve for the central Gulf of
California lies above the curve for the northern Gulf. Rank-abundance curves will provide a useful
representation of community structure in later discussions.

FIGURE 16.8 Rank-abundance curves for two reef fish communities in the Gulf of California (data
from Molles 1978, Thomson and Lehner 1976, and courtesy, of D. A. Thomson and C. E. Lehner 1976).

Rank abundance curve

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A rank abundance curve or Whittaker plot is a chart used by ecologists to display relative species
abundance, a component of biodiversity. It can also be used to visualize species
richness and species evenness. It overcomes the shortcomings of biodiversity indices that cannot
display the relative role different variables played in their calculation.

A rank abundance curve

The curve is a 2D chart with relative abundance on the Y-axis and the abundance rank on the Xaxis.

X-axis: The abundance rank. The most abundant species is given rank 1, the second most
abundant is 2 and so on.

Y-axis: The relative abundance. Usually measured on a log scale, this is a measure of a species
abundance (e.g., the number of individuals) relative to the abundance of other species.

Interpreting a rank abundance curve[edit]

As mentioned, the rank abundance curve provide a means for visually representing species richness
and species evenness. Species richness can be viewed as the number of different species on the
chart i.e., how many species were ranked. Species evenness is derived from the slope of the line
that fits the graph. A steep gradient indicates low evenness as the high ranking species have much
higher abundances than the low ranking species. A shallow gradient indicates high evenness as the
abundances of different species are similar.

External links[edit]

Whittaker Diagram, Procedural Content Generation Wiki - use of Whittaker diagrams in

procedural content generation

References[edit]

Magurran, Anne E. (2004). Measuring biological diversity. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-632-056339.

Whittaker, R. H. (1965). "Dominance and Diversity in Land Plant Communities: Numerical

relations of species express the importance of competition in community function and
evolution". Science 147 (3655): 250
260. doi:10.1126/science.147.3655.250. PMID 17788203. edit

Rank Abundance Curves

Description
Provides methods of calculating rank-abundance curves.

Usage
rankabundance(x,y="",factor="",level,digits=1,t=qt(0.975,df=n-1))
rankabunplot(xr,addit=F,labels="",scale="abundance",scaledx=F,type="o",
xlim=c(min(xpos),max(xpos)),ylim=c(0,max(x[,scale])),specnames=c(1:5),...)
rankabuncomp(x,y="",factor,scale="abundance",scaledx=F,type="o",rainbow=T,
legend=T,xlim=c(1,max1), ylim=c(0,max2), ...)

Arguments
x

Community data frame with sites as rows, species as columns and species abundance as cell values.

Environmental data frame.

factor

Variable of the environmental data frame that defines subsets to calculate rank abundance curves for.

level

Level of the variable to create the subset to calculate rank abundance curves.

digits

Number of digits in the results.

t-value to calculate confidence interval limits for the species proportion for cluster sampling (following
Hayek and Buzas 1997).

xr

Result from rankabundance.

addit

Add rank abundance curve to an existing graph.

labels

Labels to plot at left of the rank abundance curves.

scale

Method of scaling the vertical axis. Method "abundance" uses abundance, "proportion" uses
proportional abundance (species abundance / total abundance), "logabun" calculates the logarithm of
abundance using base 10 and "accumfreq" accumulates the proportional abundance.

scaledx

Scale the horizontal axis to 100 percent of total number of species.

type

Type of plot (as in function plot)

xlim

Limits for the horizontal axis.

ylim

Limits for the vertical axis.

specnames

Vector positions of species names to add to the rank-abundance curve.

rainbow

Use rainbow colouring for the different curves.

legend

Add the legend (you need to click in the graph where the legend needs to be plotted).

...

Other arguments to be passed to functions plot or points.

Details
These functions provide methods of calculating and plotting rank-abundance curves.

The vertical axis can be scaled by various methods. Method "abundance" uses abundance, "proportion" uses
proportional abundance (species abundance / total abundance), "logabun" calculates the logarithm of abundance
using base 10 and "accumfreq" accumulates the proportional abundance.
The horizontal axis can be scaled by the total number of species, or by 100 percent of all species by option
"scaledx".
The method of calculating the confidence interval for species proportion is described in Hayek and Buzas (1997).
Functions rankabundance and rankabuncomp allow to calculate rank abundance curves for subsets of the community
and environmental data sets. Function rankabundance calculates the rank abundance curve for the specified level of
a selected environmental variable. Method rankabuncomp calculates the rank abundance curve for all levels of a
selected environmental variable separatedly.

Value
The functions provide information on rankabundance curves. Function rankabundance provides information on
abundance, proportional abundance, logarithmic abundance and accumulated proportional abundance. The function
also provides confidence interval limits for the proportion of each species (plower, pupper) and the proportion of
species ranks (in percentage).

Author(s)
Roeland Kindt (World Agroforestry Centre)

References
Hayek, L.-A. C. & Buzas, M.A. (1997). Surveying Natural Populations. Columbia University Press.
Kindt, R. & Coe, R. (2005) Tree diversity analysis: A manual and software for common statistical methods for
ecological and biodiversity studies.

A curve that portrays the number of species in a community and their relative abundance; constructed by
plotting the relative abundance of species against their rank in abundance.

Higher species evenness in a community can be measured by a shallower slope on a rank-abundance

curve.

Rank abundance curves are a simple way of graphically depicting the relationship between
species richness and evenness for a community

The y-axis is relative abundance, the x-axis is abundance rank

Intepretation: steeper curves mean fewer species, greater dominance, reduced evenness

Rank Abundance Curves

! Measuring whole communities by just one statistic of
diversity index may lose much valuable information.
! Plotting relative abundance of species (usually on a
logarithmic scale) against their rank in abundance
within a community - alternative way of measures.
! A rank abundance diagram can be drawn for the
number of individuals, biomass, ground area
covered (for plants), and other variables.
" Higher species richness and greater evenness indicated by
lower slope.