Biodiverse, a tool for the spatial analysis of biological and related diversity

Abstract

Biodiverse is a tool for the spatial analysis of diversity using indices based on taxonomic, phylogenetic and matrix (e.g. genetic dissimilarity) relationships. The explosion in georeferenced biological specimen and survey data means there is an increasing need for such tools. Biodiverse supports four processes: 1) linked visualisation of data distributions in geographic, taxonomic, phylogenetic and matrix spaces; 2) spatial moving window analyses including richness, endemism, phylogenetic diversity and beta diversity; 3) spatially constrained agglomerative cluster analyses; and 4) randomisations for hypothesis testing. Biodiverse is open-source and supports user developed extensions. It can be used both through a graphical user interface and scripts. Biodiverse can be downloaded from <www.purl.org/biodiverse>.