skbio.diversity.alpha.sobs#

skbio.diversity.alpha.sobs(counts)[source]#

Calculate the observed species richness of a sample.

Observed species richness, usually denoted as \(S_{obs}\) or simply \(S\), is the number of distinct species (i.e., taxa), or any discrete groups of biological entities found in a sample.

It should be noted that observed species richness is smaller than or equal to the true species richness of a population from which the sample is collected.

Parameters:
counts1-D array_like, int

Vector of counts.

Returns:
int

Observed species richness.