The Manly-Chesson's Index (or Manly's alpha, or Chesson's index) refers to an index to determine
selective feeding on discrete food items. It was described separately by
Bryan F. J. Manly and
Jean Chesson in the 1970s.
It was initially described for two different food types, but was later extended to include more food types.
The index for two food types is calculated as:
.
Where
and
are the number of individuals of present at the start for each species and
and
are the number of items consumed of each type respectively.
is the estimate of preference.
The use of this index has been widespread with more than 400 citations in the scientific literature.
[ISI Web of Science Search 5 Feb 2009]
References
Eating behaviors
Ecology
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