Testing for differences in beta diversity with asymmetric dissimilarities

摘要: Abstract In this paper, expanding on a well-known connection between Whittaker's beta diversity and multivariate dissimilarity coefficients, simple test for differences in among different sets of plots is proposed. Being based any suitable (not necessarily symmetric) plot-to-plot coefficient the appropriate analyzing data that are usually zero-inflated due to large number rare species which variables (species) typically larger than observations (plots). To illustrate proposed practice, we used from two beech forests with management history Abruzzo (central Italy).