Similarity measures

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17.17 Steinhaus

If W is the sum of the minimum abundance for each species in two samples, A

and B are the sum of the abundance of all the species in each sample this

similarity coefficient is given by:

This measure is:

W/A + B

17.18 Czekanowski distance

There is some confusion in the literature as to the correct name for this distance

measure. It is attributed to Steinhaus by Motyka (See Legendre & Legendre,

1983).

For two samples the distance is given by:

2w/A+B

where w is the sum of the minimum abundances of the species in the two

samples, A is the sum of species abundance in sample 1 and B is the sum of

species abundance in sample 2.

17.19 Kulczynski Quantitative

Using the same nomenclature as for the 

Steinhaus coefficient

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, this measure is

given by:

17.20 Euclidean

This is the most commonly used metric distance measure. If si1 and si2 are the

abundances of species i in samples 1 and 2 respectively then the Euclidean

distance is:

where n is the total number of species.

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