Beta diversity

Beta diversity is an ecological measure of the ratio between the total species diversity of a region and the average species diversity of its individual sites, introduced by the ecologist R. H. Whittaker alongside the related measures of alpha and gamma diversity. In this framework, the total species diversity of a landscape, gamma diversity, is the product of the mean local diversity captured by alpha diversity and the degree of difference in species composition between sites, captured by beta diversity, so beta diversity effectively measures how much species composition changes from place to place across a region. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/