Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
The hypothesis that species-rich communities have more equal distributions of relative abundance than species-poor communities (MacArthur 1969) has been tested with data from quantitative samples of marine communities. The results presented here indicate that the opposite is true and that there is a significant tendency for numerical dominance of common species to be greater in species-rich than species-poor communities. Dominance-weighted diversity indices, which are postulated on a negative correlation between species richness and dominance, should thus be cautiously interpreted.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Douglass W. Birch (1981) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 10 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: