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On the effectiveness of higher taxonomic ranks for vegetation analysis
Author(s) -
DALE M. B.,
CLIFFORD H. T.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
australian journal of ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1442-9993
pISSN - 0307-692X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1442-9993.1976.tb01091.x
Subject(s) - interpretability , taxonomic rank , subfamily , simple (philosophy) , multiplication (music) , ecology , computer science , mathematics , artificial intelligence , biology , taxon , epistemology , combinatorics , philosophy , biochemistry , gene
The ecological value of employing taxonomic categories other than species to describe vegetation is examined by comparing the results of numerical classification. Using presence data only and an unsophisticated classification method with data from a small area, it is found that the use of generic and subgeneric categories instead of species causes little loss in interpretability. At the family and subfamily levels more sophisticated analyses probably employing quantitative data, are apparently required to achieve similar levels of interpretability. The transformation between categories is shown to be a simple matrix multiplication and some alternative transformations are briefly outlined. It is suggested that the use of different taxonomic categories in a sequence of analyses beginning with the highest category would provide a useful means of planning which could reduce the overall time required for the analysis of large data sets.