If you are looking for a way to quantify your as yet unnamed and
undefined value, then maybe diversity is not what you are after.
Some workers have sorted fishes into "tolerant," and "intolerant"
(sometimes with finer scale sorting) w/respect to pollutants, habitat
degradation, and so on, without defining an index. Perhaps some sort
of system that would count the number of individuals in various
tolerance categories would serve your purpose? My advisor once told me
that the greatest success of a graduate student was to develop
something novel that was useful to other workers. Master's students
have "succeeded" that way.
One difficulty of using any of the indices that have been developed to
infer something about habitat quality (and you may have no intention of
or desire to do so) is that some habitats, like headsprings, desert
streams, and so on are naturally undiverse, both w/respect to
patchiness/environmental quality and biotically. So a low value on one
of these indices may say nothing about the condition of the system.
I know, you didn't ask all this, and the list probably isn't interested.
Have fun!
Dave
David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely at lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely/index.htm
"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association (NANFA). Comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of NANFA. For more information about NANFA,
/ visit http://www.nanfa.org Please make sure all posts to nanfa-l are
/ consistent with the guidelines as per
/ http://www.nanfa.org/guidelines.shtml To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get
/ help, visit the NANFA email list home page and archive at
/ http://www.nanfa.org/email.shtml