Species Diversity of a Stratified Oak‐Hickory Community

The herb, shrub, understory, and canopy strata (each arbitrarily delineated by size classes) were sampled separately. The latter two were sampled by a series of two different plot sizes and by a plotless sampling technique. Diversity (= —Σpi ln pi) of each stratum was estimated for each set of census data. Species diversity within a stratum was independent of sample plot size above a minimum cumulative area. Estimates of diversity based on plotless and plot samples gave similar values. It was suggested that diversity of a stratified community could be determined by pooling the data needed to estimated diversity of each stratum. See full-text article at JSTOR