在生物多樣性的研究領域中，學者常利用總物種數目來比較兩群落間的物種豐富度，但物種數會受到收集到的樣本數影響，故會利用物種稀釋函數將收集到的樣本稀釋到相同的樣本數，以此來比較兩群落的物種豐富度，而物種稀釋曲線在本文第二章的文獻回顧中都會有詳盡的定義以及估計方法。
本文主要的研究主題分成三個部分，第一部分為由Alroy (2010)，Jost (2010)以及Chao和Jost (2011)提出以物種稀釋函數對樣本涵蓋率作圖的想法，將物種稀釋函數稀釋到相同樣本涵蓋率下，利用此比較群落間的物種豐富度大小，本文對此方法以例題加以詳細闡述；第二部分則是藉由Chao (2000)所提出的兩群落共同種樣本涵蓋率的概念，而建構出雙群落共同種稀釋曲線及其估計量，並且利用電腦模擬的方式，觀察估計量的表現；最後則是修正了稀釋函數使用傳統拔靴法在計算估計量之標準差時因樣本偏差而造成低估的問題。

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