摘要：Taxonomic resolution or uncertainty poses an important problem in biodiversity research.Assessment of biodiversity at the species level is most informative and preferred, butrequires effort and expertise. Alternatively, researchers often bin species into higher taxabecause they are unable to recognize them, or to save money and time. Here we analyse,by simulation and analytical modelling, the combined effects of dose-dependent mortalityand taxonomic binning on biodiversity indices for a fictitious community of organisms.We asked (1) how binning species in a sample into higher taxa significantly affectsbiodiversity measures, and (2) whether dose-dependent mortality effects, alone or incombination with taxonomic uncertainty, are duly captured by classic biodiversity indices.Our study shows that haphazard binning into various taxonomic levels is legitimate andpreferable to orderly binning (all taxa binned at the same level), because it provides thebest resolution. We further show that binning will regularly obscure statistical detection ofbiodiversity differences, if only due to scaling of mean and variance. Also, treatmenteffects in combination with taxonomic uncertainty can introduce estimation biases of attimes complex nonlinear and non-intuitive nature under any taxonomic resolution scenario, potentially including relative increases in the biodiversity index when intuitivelydecreases would be expected. We recommend being specific about the expected qualitative and quantitative effects of any treatment or natural comparison before formulatinga hypothesis regarding biodiversity reductions. Our theoretical study should aid in thisendeavour.
