Within-forest stand (or formation, or plot) and between-forest stand (or formation, or plot) biodiversity indices

The idea of entropy, which has its roots in information theory and proposes that one may measure the degree of uncertainty associated with the prediction of bits and pieces of information, has been widely used by biologists and ecologists for decades to define biological diversity. For ecologists, the core of the issue is whether or not two species' distribution taken from the same habitat are the same or distinct. The Shannon index and Simpson diversity are well-known in ecology; however, the non-linearity of these indices may cause a misinterpretation of the underlying diversity, as shown by Lou Jost (2006) and others. Applying the proposed template, one can:•calculate several biodiversity indices,•compare two different forest stands (or formations, or plots), or two different profiles in two different times, for the same forest stand (or formation, or plot), in terms of biodiversity.