On Fitting the Poisson Lognormal Distribution to Species-Abundance Data
Michael G Bulmer · Biometrics · 1974
An extension of MacArthur's broken stick model is proposed to explain why species abundances should be lognormally distributed. A method of fitting the compound Poisson lognormal distribution by maximum likelihood is described; a computer program is available for performing the calculations. It is shown how the information theory measure of species diversity can be estimated from the parameters of the fitted distribution.