Abstract
Diversity indices, although designed for comparative purposes, often cannot be used as such, due to their sample-size dependence. It is argued here that this dependence is more pronounced in high diversity than in low diversity assemblages and that indices more sensitive to rarer species require larger sample size to estimate diversity with reasonable precision than indices which put more weight on commoner species. This was tested for Hill''s diversity numbers N0 to N.infin. (Hill 1973) and some other commonly used diversity indices for a high-diversity nematode assemblage in the Mediterranean deep sea.

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