Document Type
Report
Publication Date
1-20-2006
Keywords
species richness, sampling effort, marine benthos
Abstract
In planning marine benthic grab sampling, there is a need to determine the number of faunal samples that should be collected to guarantee than an adequate amount of data is available to identify and describe faunal community structure. We suggest that an estimate of species richness can serve as the basis for the determining sample size. An appropriate criterion might be, for example, to set sample size within an environmentally and biologically homogenous area large enough such that at least 70% of the species that are present are collected. The goal of present study is to identify an appropriate species richness estimator, use it to estimate the fraction of species collected in environmentally and biologically homogenous areas, and examine the results to recommend a practical sample size for faunal studies.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Maher, N.P. and R.M. Cerrato (2006) Using Species Richness to Estimate Benthic Sampling Effort. A Report Prepared for the Hudson River Estuary Program of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY. 12 pp.