Zeta diversity

In ecology, zeta diversity (ζ-diversity), first described in 2014,[1] measures the degree of overlap in the type of taxa present between a set of observed communities.

It was developed to provide a more generalized framework for describing various measures of diversity, and can also be used to test various hypotheses pertaining to biogeography.

The most basic measure of community diversity, alpha diversity (α-diversity), can be described as the average number of distinct taxonomic groups (e.g. unique genera or operational taxonomic unit) present, independent of their abundances, on a per sample basis.

In the ζ-diversity framework this can be described as ζ1, the number of unique taxa present in one sample.

Using the number of distinct taxonomic groups per community as a measure of α-diversity one can then describe β-diversity between two communities in terms of distinct number taxonomic groups held in common between them.