3.3 | Beta diversities between communities
To investigate the number of effective communities in our sampled universe, we calculated the beta diversity values for all diversity levels (Table 2). The combination of Size Fraction, Transect, Time and Station generates 7.726 different effective communities of rare species (0D). In contrast, the effective community numbers of common (1D) and dominant (2D) species was 1.524 and 1.540, respectively, decreased largely compared to the 0D beta diversity. The differences between the 1D and 2D beta diversities were minimal for all variables. Size Fraction was the most prominent variable, rendering almost 2 effective communities of rare species (0D) and the highest numbers of 1D and 2D.
Next, beta diversities were again estimated, but this time each Size Fraction was treated independently (Table 3). Considering rare and common species, the beta diversity was noticeably higher on the largest Size Fraction (F3). In contrast, no clear pattern is observed for dominant species.