Biology of communities estimation of species richness of a community by its species structure, as illustrated by the macrophytes of Vityaz Bay in the Sea of Japan

Five methods of computing species richness in community are discussed using the example of a well-studied macrophytic taxocoen: (1) fitting an ogive for lognormal distribution; (2) model fitting of a rank curve for this distribution; (3) iterative computation of statistical moments using Hald's method; (4) computation of these moments by explicit functions; and (5) model fitting of a “species-area” curve. According to the repeatability of results and simplicity of computing, the best method is the computation of statistical moments by explicit functions. The degree of our knowledge about a particular community could be considered as the ratio of the number of actually distinguished species to the greatest expected number.