This accessible and timely book provides a comprehensive overviewof how to measure biodiversity. The diversity of life on earthinspires fundamental ecological questions concerning the abundanceof species and their distribution over space and time. The rapidloss of this diversity, primarily due to the impact of humanity,makes the need for effective ways of measuring biological diversitymore important than ever. As the successor to the authors influential EcologicalDiversity and its Measurement, this book has been completelyrewritten to reflect the explosion of interest in biodiversity inthe last fifteen years. The book highlights new developments,including innovative approaches to measuring taxonomic distinctnessand estimating species richness, and evaluates these alongsidetraditional methods such as species abundance distributions, anddiversity and evenness statistics.Measuring Biological Diversity assumes no specialistmathematical knowledge and includes worked examples and links toweb-based software. It will be essential reading for all students,researchers, and managers who need to measure biologicaldiversity.