Pedodiversity analysis in Hainan Island

Abstract

Diversity indices and abundance distribution models are statistical tools which ecologiste have applied for decades for analyzing the intrinsic regularities of various ecological entities. In this work, we have applied these techniques to use the notions such as pedodiversity (as an example of geodiversity in a broad sense), in order to detect the differences and similarities between both natural resources, biological and non-biological. The discussion has mainly been conducted through the study of landform based pedodiversity analysis applied to SOTER digital databases in Hainan Island, China. The main analytical methods include indices of richnessS that are the number of the categories (SOTER units relating to different soils in this work), indices based on proportional abundance of categoriesH andE which are not only the number but also their relative abundance (in our case, the relative area occupied by each pedotaxa) is taken into account, models of the distribution of abundance of categories that provide the most complete description but also the least abridged and GIS mapping to show the spatial variation digitally.