The numerical relationship between vegetation and environment
The numerical relationship between vegetation and environment
A strategy of relating vegetation and environment was defined based largely on the user requirements of a field plant ecologist wishing to identify the major influential environmental factors within an area. This strategy comprises, 1) a preliminary transformation of the vegetational data, 2) the extraction of a one-dimensional ordination axis, 3) the relating of this axis to the environmental data by means of multiple linear regression, 4) classification of the data into two subgroups and 5) the repetition of steps 2 to 4 down to the required level. It was felt that the data themselves, together with the knowledge and experience of the investigator should play a part in deciding the form and mode of application of the analytical techniques. To this end, a transformation model of the vegetation was developed in which the particular data set under study was itself allowed to indicate the optimum degree of transformation severity. At a later stage in the analytical sequence, this concept resulted in the adoption of Ridge Regression to actually relate the vegetational and environmental components. This technique is based on a biased estimator and involves a subjective assessment of the performance of the data by the investigator. The complete strategy and chosen suite of analytical methods were tested and found to give useful insights, not only into the ecological characteristics of the study area but also into the numerical properties of the data.
University of Southampton
1981
Owen, Lyn
(1981)
The numerical relationship between vegetation and environment.
University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.
Record type:
Thesis
(Doctoral)
Abstract
A strategy of relating vegetation and environment was defined based largely on the user requirements of a field plant ecologist wishing to identify the major influential environmental factors within an area. This strategy comprises, 1) a preliminary transformation of the vegetational data, 2) the extraction of a one-dimensional ordination axis, 3) the relating of this axis to the environmental data by means of multiple linear regression, 4) classification of the data into two subgroups and 5) the repetition of steps 2 to 4 down to the required level. It was felt that the data themselves, together with the knowledge and experience of the investigator should play a part in deciding the form and mode of application of the analytical techniques. To this end, a transformation model of the vegetation was developed in which the particular data set under study was itself allowed to indicate the optimum degree of transformation severity. At a later stage in the analytical sequence, this concept resulted in the adoption of Ridge Regression to actually relate the vegetational and environmental components. This technique is based on a biased estimator and involves a subjective assessment of the performance of the data by the investigator. The complete strategy and chosen suite of analytical methods were tested and found to give useful insights, not only into the ecological characteristics of the study area but also into the numerical properties of the data.
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Published date: 1981
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Local EPrints ID: 459595
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/459595
PURE UUID: ae7698b4-72b1-4d12-9fee-05c3cfb82ea2
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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 17:14
Last modified: 04 Jul 2022 17:14
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Author:
Lyn Owen
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