Talk:Shannon index

message: For the beginning Ecology student, this page makes me want to run away from Ecology.  Not only is all the proofs intimidating to the regular layman, it doesn't even give a simple explanation for what the end result will give you...
By googling Shannon Index, there's a link (www.instruction.greenriver.edu/.../Shannon%20Diversity%20Index.doc) that sums it up better than anything on this page.
"High values of H would be representative of more diverse communities.  A community with only one species would have an H value of 0 because Pi would equal 1 and be multiplied by ln Pi which would equal zero.  If the species are evenly distributed then the H value would be high.  So the H value allows us to know not only the number of species but how the abundance of the species is distributed among all the species in the community."
Please do better
Wow this helped me with my HW tremendously... can we add that quotation to the page?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.149.68.235 (talk) 00:04, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simplify? 

message: The introduction to this article gives the impression that the primary or even the only use of this function is measuring species diversity.  What if there were an article titled "cardinal number" that said the purpose of cardinal numbers is enumeration of animals in a forest?  The sequence {1, 2, ,3 ,...} is used for counting animals in forests; it is not used for counting anything else; it is known only to those who have studied the counting of animals in forests.  That's all.
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That's what this article does. Michael Hardy 23:33, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Shannon index seems identical to information entropy, which is used by many branches of math and engineering. I think Michael's point is that the article needs to say this. hike395 07:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  misleading 

message: At the start of the article, the index is referred to as the Shannon index; the other two variants are said to be wrong. The source for this is a 1989 work by Charles J. Krebs. In a newer work, however (CJ Krebs. Ecology: the experimental analysis of distribution and abundance, 5th edition. p617-618), the same author calls the index the Shannon-Wiener index. Is there other information that could be used to find the "correct" name for the index, if one exists? Jonht 09:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Index name 

message: 'In natural systems, the value of Hprime has been found to range from 1.5 for systems with low species richness and evenness to 3.5 for systems with high species evenness and richness'
McDonald, Glen (2003) Biogeography: Space, Time and Life, John WIley& Sons inc. pg 409 of the text
~~melissa~~  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.60.98 (talk) 21:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  This information should be added to the article - the lack of any typical range of results does nothing to help a lay person faced by "This site has a Shannon index of X" and comes to WP looking to understand what that statement means. For what its worth I came here for a reality check after reading a report on a site with an index of 0.5! The Yowser (talk) 13:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Normal Values for Shannon-Weiner Index:

message: High value of Shannon Index does not indicate high diversity only but both the high diversity  or high uniformity (both of the extreme cases). So this measur does not indicate the biodiversity correctly from mathematical point of view.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuhinsubhrakonar (talk • contribs) 16:54, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agreed the article should make clear that it is unwise to rely on a single measure of diversity. especially as uniformity in species numbers is the exception, rather than the rule.The Yowser (talk) 13:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shannon Biodiversity Index can never be Conclusive 

message: Hello, I'd like to move forward with merging this article with entropy_(ecology). Also, I'm considering changing the notation for the shannon index to H. H seems preferable to H' for many reasons.
* Using H retains consistency with Entropy_(information_theory), which is really the same thing, just applied in a different context.
* I cannot find any good rationale for the H' notation.
* H' notation is potentially confusing, because it raises the question "Is H' the derivative of some other quantity H?" The answer is (to my knowledge) "no, this in fact the same thing that's called simple H elsewhere".
If anyone has reasons to not merge (with redirect), or reasons to keep H' notation, please speak up. Otherwise, I will make these modifications over the next week. Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 22:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notation and merging 

message: I find that this article fails to explain the essential meaning and information content of the Shannon index. At least the proof should be removed, because it is very long and complicated (and I am not sure if it is even correct) even though the same thing could be explained in two sentences. I would really prefer to merge this article with the Diversity index article. That one includes an explanation of what the Shannon index means in practice, and also places it in context with the other diversity indices that are used in ecology. Does someone have objections to this?
Cricetus (talk) 19:59, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Another merging?