Alternatively, we can measure species richness (described above) and evenness together. Evenness describes how differently (or evenly) bacteria are distributed in samples: If all bacterial abundances are the same, evenness is maximal.
A typically employed measure here is the shannon-index, defined as the negative sum of relative abundances times their natural logarithm, combining richness and evenness into a compound metric.
A typically employed measure here is the Shannon-index, defined as the negative sum of relative abundances times their natural logarithm, combining richness and evenness into a compound metric.