Macgregor-Fors, IanEscobar, FedericoEscobar-Ibáñez, Juan F.Mesa-Sierra, NataliaAlvarado, FredyRueda-Hernández, RafaelMoreno, Claudia E.Falfán, InaCorro, Erick J.Pineda, EduardoBourg, AmandineAguilar-López, José L.Dáttilo, Wesley2024-02-142024-02-142022-05MacGregor-Fors, I.; Escobar, F.; Escobar-Ibáñez, J. F.; Mesa-Sierra, N.; Alvarado, F.; Rueda-Hernández, R. & Dáttilo, W. (2022). Shopping for Ecological Indices? On the Use of Incidence-Based Species Compositional Similarity Measures. Diversity, 14(5), 384.1424-2818https://hdl.handle.net/11117/10810β-diversity has been under continuous debate, with a current need to better understand the way in which a new wave of measures work. We assessed the results of 12 incidence-based β-diversity indices. Our results of gradual species composition overlap between paired assemblages considering progressive differences in species richness show the following: (i) four indices (β-2, β-3, β-3.s, and βr) should be used cautiously given that results with no shared species retrieve results that could be misinterpreted; (ii) all measures conceived specifically as partitioned components of species compositional dissimilarities ought to be used as such and not as independent measures per se; (iii) the non-linear response of some indices to gradual species composition overlap should be interpreted carefully, and further analysis using their results as dependent variables should be performed cautiously; and (iv) two metrics (βsim and βsor) behave predictably and linearly to gradual species composition overlap. We encourage ecologists using measures of β-diversity to fully understand their mathematical nature and type of results under the scenario to be used in order to avoid inappropriate and misleading inferences.engbeta diversity; nestedness; replacement; richness difference; species turnoverBeta DiversityNestednessReplacementRichness DifferenceSpecies Turnoverinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article