Surveying Natural Populations is a user-friendly primer to the essential methodologies of quantitative field ecology or paleoecology. Combining the intuitive methods of the field researcher with the mathematical precision of the statistician, the volume determines, through real biodiversity and ecological examples, the necessary measures for a complete community assessment while clarifying the confusions between biological and statistical terminology. Focusing on underlying mathematical concepts, it describes how to complete incrementally a quantitative sampling of any recent or fossil population.

The first half of Surveying Natural Populations explains the fundamentals of ecological assessment. Employing a single data set throughout, initial chapters navigate such topics as estimating densities, relative abundance, occurrences, the determination of adequate sample sizes and field sampling schemes. The second half covers the newest advances in biodiversity measurement. Through the use of information mathematics and decomposition, the authors mathematically examine the relationship among a number of proposed diversity indices and discard inappropriate measures. What remains is a simple, all-encompassing system called SHE analysis, in which species density, richness, information, and evenness are all shown to be related explicitly. This biodiversity data is then integrated into a simple graphic, a plot called a biodiversitygram, which provides the researcher with a cohesive descriptive and inferential tool to assess any community's biodiversity.

Lee-Ann C. Hayek is chief mathematical statistician and senior research scientist of the Smithsonian Institution and a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Royal Statistical Society. She is internationally known for her many publications in a wide variety of fields, including biodiversity assessment.

Martin A. Buzas is curator of benthic foraminifera and senior geologist in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. His research focuses on the quantitative understanding of the distribution of organisms in small and large amounts of space and time. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Paleontological Society, and the Cushman Foundation, he has received the Cushman Award and the Paleontological Society Medal, the field's most prestigious award.

Hayek and Buzas... deliver a lucid account of the statistical and experimental aspects of measuring biodiversity of extant and fossil populations.... Highly recommended.

Lee-Ann C. Hayek and Martin A. Buzas have produced a rare classic in the field of quantitative biological-paleontological analysis. If you collect paleontological data in the field, if you analyze such data in the office, or if you are asked to review such work, you need a copy of this book.

Reads almost like a novel in comparison to normal statistical books.

H. J. B. Birks:
A timely, valuable, and important contribution to the literature on quantitative ecology, conservation, wildlife management, and palaeoecology. I strongly recommend it to all quantitative ecologists and palaeoecologists.

Erica Fleishman:
A welcome, noteworthy contribution to the ecology, conservation, and biostatistical literature.