Abstract
In my review of multivariate methods in phytosociology (van der Maarel 1979) I briefly commented on the interpretability of Type A distortions (see Orlóci 1974b, 1978), i.e. ‘horseshoe’, (‘arch’) effects in ordination diagrams of axes 1 and 2. Such effects are now generally recognized as the result of curvilinearities intrinsic to community data i.e. (1) the bellshaped species response curves along environmental gradients and (2) the nonlinear decrease of sample similarity with increasing sample separation (Gauch, Whittaker & Wentworth 1977, see also Swan 1970, Noy-Meir & Austin 1970, Gauch & Whittaker 1972, Austin 1976, Noy-Meir & Whittaker 1978 and Whittaker & Gauch 1978 to mention a few papers I consulted again for this purpose). Hill & Gauch (1980) even say more straightforwardly: ‘the arch effect is simply a mathematical artifact, corresponding to no real structure in the data’, when discussing faults of reciprocal averaging.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Austin, M.P. 1976. On non-linear species response models in ordination. Vegetatio 33: 33–41.
Austin, M.P. 1980. Searching for a model for use in vegetation analysis. In: E. van der Maarel (ed.) Advances in vegetation science: Classification and ordination. Vegetatio 42: 11–21.
Gauch, H.G. & R.H. Whittaker. 1972. Coenocline simulation. Ecology 53: 446–451.
Gauch Jr. H.J., R.H. Whittaker & T.R. Wentworth, 1977. A comparative study of reciprocal averaging and other ordination techniques. J. Ecol. 65: 157–174.
Grime, J.P. 1973. Control of species density in herbaceous vegetation. J. Envir. Manage. 1: 151–167.
Grime, J.P. 1977. Evidence for the existence of three primary strategies in plants and its relevance to ecological and evolutionary theory. Amer. Natur. 111: 1169–1194.
Hill, M.O. 1973. Reciprocal averaging: An eigenvector method of ordination. J. Ecol. 61: 237–249.
Hill, M.O. 1979. Decorana. A Fortran program for detrended correspondence analysis and reciprocal averaging. Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, Ithaca. 52 pp.
Hill, M.O. & H.G. Gauch Jr. 1980. Detrended correspondence analysis, an improved ordination technique. In: E. van der Maarel (ed.). Advances in vegetation science: Classification and ordination. Vegetatio 42: 47–58.
Jensen, S. 1978. Influences of transformation of cover values on classification and ordination of lake vegetation. Vegetatio 37: 19–31.
Louppen, J.W.M., M.J.A. Werger & J.H.M. Eppink. 1978. Vegetation boundaries and species performances along an environmental gradient. Abstracts 2nd. Int. Congr. Ecology, Jerusalem, p. 217.
Maarel, E. van der. 1972. Ordination of plant communities on the basis of their plant genus, family and order relationships. In: E. van der Maarel & R. Tiixen (ed.). Grundfragen und Methoden der Pflanzensoziologie. Ber. Int. Symp. Rinteln 1970, Junk, Den Haag. p. 183–192.
Maarel, E. van der. 1976. On the establishment of plant community boundaries. Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Ges. 89: 415–443.
Maarel, E. van der. 1979. Multivariate methods in phyto-sociology, with reference to the Netherlands. In M.J.A. Werger (ed.) The study of vegetation, p. 161–225.
Maarel, E. van der. 1979a. Transformation of cover-abundance values in phytosociology and its effects on community similarity. Vegetatio 39: 97–114.
Maarel, E. van der, J.G.M. Janssen & J.M.W. Louppen. 1978. TABORD, a program for structuring phytosociological tables. Vegetatio 38: 143–156.
Maarel, E. van der & J. Leertouwer. 1967. Variation in vegetation and species diversity along a local environmental gradient. Acta Bot. Neerl. 16: 211–221.
Mueller-Dombois, D. & H. Ellenberg. 1974. Aims and methods of vegetation ecology. Wiley, New York, XI + 547 pp.
Noy-Meir, I. & P. Austin. 1970. Principal component ordination and simulated vegetation data. Ecology 51: 551–552.
Noy-Meir, I.D. Walker & W.T. Williams. 1975. Data transformations in ecological ordination. II. On the meaning of data standardization. J. Ecol. 63: 779–800.
Noy-Meir, I. & R.H. Whittaker. 1978. Recent developments in continuous multivariate techniques. In R.H. Whittaker (ed.) Ordination of plant communities, p. 337–378.
Orlóci, L. 1974. On information flow in ordination. Vegetatio 29: 11–16.
Orlóci, L. 1978. Multivariate analysis in vegetation research. 2nd. ed. Junk, The Hague, Boston, IX+ 451 pp.
Roskam, E. 1971. Programme ORDINA: Multidimensional ordination of observation vectors. Programme Bull. 16, Psychology Lab. Nijmegen, 8 pp.
Swan, J.M.A. 1970. An examination of some ordination problems by use of simulated vegetational data. Ecology 51: 89–102.
Werger, M.J.A., H. Wild & B.R. Drummond. 1978. Vegetation structure and substrate of the Northern part of the Great Dyke, Rhodesia: Gradient analysis and dominance-diversity relationships. Vegetatio 37: 151–161.
Whittaker, R.H. & H.G. Gauch Jr. 1978. Evaluation of ordination techniques, 2nd ed. In R.H. Whittaker (ed.) Ordination of plant communities, p. 277–336. Junk, The Hague, 388 pp.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1980 Dr. W. Junk bv Publishers, The Hague
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van der Maarel, E. (1980). On the Interpretability of Ordination Diagrams. In: van der Maarel, E. (eds) Classification and Ordination. Advances in vegetation science, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9197-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9197-2_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-009-9199-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-9197-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive