Rethinking composite quantification by capturing biological and ecological diversity across multiple dimensions

With the worldwide accelerated biodiversity loss, there is great urgency to prioritize areas in need of conservation and methods to identify them. Still, very few research targets combining different measures to quantify diversity under its various aspects and here we aim to fill this gap. We defined and measured overall biodiversity by integrating taxonomic, functional, genetic-, and niche-based diversity, lambda diversity, which expresses the cumulative sequential differences in communities along a gradient, and xi ecological integrative diversity combining community, spatial, and environmental heterogeneity. We also developed geometric and algebraic tools using determinants of distance matrices to compute and illustrate hypervolumes representing diversity in multidimensional space, defining the Standardized Average Diversity Distinctness Index (SADDI). To illustrate the proposed methods, we used simulated and real data on freshwater mollusk communities. Our framework contributes to comparing multidimensionally and multicriterially ecological systems, which can also be translated as a useful tool for assessing conservation effectiveness, ecological monitoring, and management, while enhancing communication and information dissemination. We argue for the necessity of recognizing the Biology-Ecology-Environmental Sciences-Environmental Engineering-and-(Human) Society (termed the BEES) system, the holistic methodological and conceptual level at which to approach the challenges of the modern world and seek solutions.