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How reliable are results on spatial distribution of biodiversity based on databases? Many studies have evidenced the uncertainty related to this kind of analysis due to sampling effort bias and the need for its quantification. Despite that a number of methods are available for that, little is known about their statistical limitations and discrimination capability, which could seriously constrain their use. We assess for the first time the discrimination capacity of two widely used methods and a proposed new one (FIDEGAM), all based on species accumulation curves, under different scenarios of sampling exhaustiveness using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analyses. Additionally, we examine to what extent the output of each method represents the sampling completeness in a simulated scenario where the true species richness is known. Finally, we apply FIDEGAM to a real situation and explore the spatial patterns of plant diversity in a National Park. FIDEGAM showed an excellent discrimination capability to distinguish between well and poorly sampled areas regardless of sampling exhaustiveness, whereas the other methods failed. Accordingly, FIDEGAM values were strongly correlated with the true percentage of species detected in a simulated scenario, whereas sampling completeness estimated with other methods showed no relationship due to null discrimination capability. Quantifying sampling effort is necessary to account for the uncertainty in biodiversity analyses, however, not all proposed methods are equally reliable. Our comparative analysis demonstrated that FIDEGAM was the most accurate discriminator method in all scenarios of sampling exhaustiveness, and therefore, it can be efficiently applied to most databases in order to enhance the reliability of biodiversity analyses.
Pubmed ID: 23326357
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The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) was established by governments in 2001 to encourage free and open access to biodiversity data, via the Internet. Through a global network of countries and organizations, GBIF promotes and facilitates the mobilization, access, discovery and use of information about the occurrence of organisms over time and across the planet. GBIF provides three core services and products: # An information infrastructure an Internet-based index of a globally distributed network of interoperable databases that contain primary biodiversity data information on museum specimens, field observations of plants and animals in nature, and results from experiments so that data holders across the world can access and share them # Community-developed tools, standards and protocols the tools data providers need to format and share their data # Capacity-building the training, access to international experts and mentoring programs that national and regional institutions need to become part of a decentralized network of biodiversity information facilities. GBIF and its many partners work to mobilize the data, and to improve search mechanisms, data and metadata standards, web services, and the other components of an Internet-based information infrastructure for biodiversity. GBIF makes available data that are shared by hundreds of data publishers from around the world. These data are shared according to the GBIF Data Use Agreement, which includes the provision that users of any data accessed through or retrieved via the GBIF Portal will always give credit to the original data publishers. * Explore Species: Find data for a species or other group of organisms. Information on species and other groups of plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms, including species occurrence records, as well as classifications and scientific and common names. * Explore Countries: Find data on the species recorded in a particular country, territory or island. Information on the species recorded in each country, including records shared by publishers from throughout the GBIF network. * Explore Datasets: Find data from a data publisher, dataset or data network. Information on the data publishers, datasets and data networks that share data through GBIF, including summary information on 10028 datasets from 419 data publishers.
View all literature mentionsOrdination methods, diversity analysis and other functions for community and vegetation ecologists.
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