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A new method of species‐reduction for ecological data
Author(s) -
DALE M. B.,
WILLIAMS W. T.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
australian journal of ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1442-9993
pISSN - 0307-692X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1442-9993.1978.tb00848.x
Subject(s) - ecology , measure (data warehouse) , value (mathematics) , reduction (mathematics) , rainforest , computer science , biology , mathematics , data mining , machine learning , geometry
Abstract Existing strategies for species‐reduction in data matrices from species‐rich communities are critically reviewed, and a new method is proposed. It is based on a two‐parameter model; each species can be associated with an ‘eident value’, which is a measure of the extent to which that species discriminates between site‐groups. The method is applied to a small segment of agronomic data, and to a rainforest survey, and in both cases is shown to produce meaningful results. Application of the method promises greatly to reduce the computing time currently needed for two‐parameter analyses, and therefore to allow more extensive search techniques to be employed.