Quantifying Bird Community Similarity based on Binary and Quantitative Similarity Coefficients

• Main Author: Ivy Esra, Matius
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, (UNIMAS) 2008
• Subjects: QL Zoology
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/33541/2/Uvy%5D.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/33541/
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

This study was done to measure the similarity between two bird community samples. Samples from Kubah National Park were compared to see the similarity between two samples in terms of their species diversity of birds. Birds' assemblages from lower versus upper elevation in Kubah National Park and data from Samajaya Nature Reserve and Unimas Zoology Forest data were analyzed respectively. Data for continuous and staggered data were also compared. There are two classes of similarity measures which are Binary similarity and Quantitative similarity. Binary Similarity consists of Coefficient of Jaccard, Coefficient of Sorenson, Simple Matching Coefficient and Baroni-Urbani and Buser Coefficient. Quantitative Similarity comprise of Percentage Similarity, Morisita's Index of Similarity and Horn's Index of Similarity. Bird samples were collected using mist net that were deployed at twenty different sites. All calculations were done in MS-Excel spreadsheets, following the stipulated computation for each similarity coefficient equation. The results of analysis showed that the values of similarities in Kubah National Park ranged from very weak to strong similarities. The values for other data also vary but overall showing weak similarities between two samples from different sites.