A Novel Approach To Visualize A Complete Spectrum of Alpha Diversity: Richness, Evenness and Abundance

Several methods for the calculation of alpha diversity have been developed in the literature, including Shannon, Simpson, among others; however, each method differs in the characteristics it describes and in the units of its results. This paper presents a method for the visualization of richness, equality and abundance that, starting from a set of data, allows the representation of this method in an intuitive way to make deductions. The proposed method is based on a continuous calculation of Hill numbers. The bases and similarities with existing methods are mentioned. The formulation of the method, and a description of its coding as well as the results obtained with public data sets divided by groups are presented. The results obtained by the proposed method better represent the different characteristics of alpha diversity. Finally, the characteristics used in this method are analyzed, and their implications for future research are discussed in detail.