This monograph deals with the analysis of populations of elements. Each
element is a member of one and only one class, and we shall mainly be
concerned with populations with a large number of classes. No doubt the
present theory has its outspring in ecology, where the elements
symbolize the individual animals or plants, while the classes are the
various species of the ecological community under consideration. Some
basic ideas point back to a classical contribution by R.A. Fisher (1943,
in collaboration with A.S. Corbet and c.B. Williams) representing a
breakthrough for the theoretical analysis of diverse populations. Though
most of the work in this field has been carried out by ecologists,
statisticians and biometri- cians have, over the past 15 years, shown an
ever increasing interest in the topic. Besides being directed towards
biometricians and statisticians, this monograph may hopefully be of
interest for any research worker dealing with the classification of
units into a large number of classes, in particular ecologists,
sociologists and linguists. However, some background in statistics and
probability theory is required. It would be unless to read the present
book without some knowledge of the continuous and discrete probability
distributions summarized in section 1.1, and the use of generating
functions. In particular, a clear intuitive and formal understanding of
the concept of condi- tional probability and conditional distributions
is required in order to interpret the various models correctly.