Renovando las medidas para evaluar la diversidad en comunidades ecológicas: El número de especies efectivas de murciélagos en el sureste de Tabasco, México

Abstract

Many studies analyze and compare species diversity, as a property of community structure, mainly in order to suggest priorities for conservation. Recently, robust measures of diversity have been proposed, and they may be helpful to achieve this objective in a better way. In this work we assess “true†species diversity, using species richness and the effective number of species in ecological communities. As a study case we assess the change of phyllostomid bat diversity between forest and secondary vegetation areas in Southern Tabasco, Mexico. Both species richness and species diversity were higher in forest remnants. In average, secondary vegetation areas harbor 2.33 less species, and 79.56% of bat diversity, than forests. One of the main advantages of using effective species numbers is that they allow for a direct evaluation of the amount of change in diversity between communities.