Estimation of species richness: analysis of the methods developed by Chao and Karakassis

Abstract

The number of studies on marine biological diversity is increasing rapidly. One of the primary goals of such studies is to estimate how many species occur in a given area. Both parametric and non-parametric methods have been developed to make such estimates. Here, we examine 2 categories of methods: one proposed by Chao (1984) Scand J Statist 11:265-270 and one by Karakassis (1995) Mar Ecol Prog Ser 120:299-303. Foggo et al. (2003) Mar Ecol Prog Ser 248:15-26 recently compared these methods. By examining the bases for the methods, we show that both give large underestimates of the likely number of species in a given area, and an alternative solution is suggested.