Skip to main content
Log in

Similarity-based testing for community pattern: the two-way layout with no replication

  • Published:
Marine Biology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The large, sparse arrays of species counts arising in both field and experimental community studies do not lend themselves to standard statistical tests based on multivariate normality. Instead, a valid and more revealing approach uses informal display methods, such as clustering or multi-dimensional scaling ordination (MDS), based on a biologically-motivated definition of pairwise similarity of samples in terms of species composition. Formal testing methods are still required, however, to establish that real assemblage differences exist between sites, times, experimental treatments, pollution states, etc. Earlier work has described a range of Manteltype permutation or randomisation procedures, making no distributional assumptions, which are termed ANOSIM tests because of their dependence only on (rank) similarities and the analogy to one and two-way ANOVA. This paper extends these tests to cover an important practical case, previously unconsidered, that of a two-way layoutwithout replication. Such cases arise for single samples (or pseudo-replicates) taken in a baseline monitoring survey of several sites over time, or a mesocosm experiment in which “treatments” are replicated only once within each experimental “block”. Significance tests are given for the overall presence of a treatment (or time) effect, based on a measure of concordance between rank similarities of samples within each block (or site); the role of the two factors can be reversed to obtain a test for block effects. As in the analogous univariate ANOVA test, the method relies on absence or relative weakness of treatment x block “interactions”. Its scope is illustrated with data from two experimental and two field studies, involving meiofaunal communities from soft-sediment and macro-algal habitats. It is seen also to accommodate a modest derree of missing data. Whilst the failure to replicate adequately is not encouraged—a richer inference is available with genuine replication—the paper does provide a limited way forward for hypothesis testing in the absence of replicates.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Austen, M. C. (1989). Factors affecting estuarine meiobenthic assemblage structure: a multifactorial microcosm experiment. J. exp. mar. Biol. Ecol. 130: 167–187

    Google Scholar 

  • Austen, M C., Warwick, R. M. (1989). Comparison of univariate and multivariate aspects of estuarine meiobenthic community structure. Estuar., cstl Shelf Sci. 29: 23–42

    Google Scholar 

  • Austen, M. C., Warwick, R. M. (1993). Effects of experimental manipulation of food supply on estuarine meiobenthos. Hydrobiologia (in press)

  • Bray, J. R., Curtis, J. T. (1957). An ordination of the upland forest communities of Southern Wisconsin. Ecol. Monogr. 27: 325–349

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, K. R. (1993). Non-parametric multivariate analyses of changes in community structure. Aust. J. Ecol. 18: 117–143

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, K. R., Ainsworth, M. (1993). A method of linking multivariate community structure to environmental variables. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 92: 205–219

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, K. R., Green, R. H. (1988). Statistical design and analysis for a ‘bilogical effects’ study. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 46: 213–226

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawson-Shepherd, A, Warwick, R. M., Clarke, K. R., Brown, B. E. (1992). An analysis of fish community responses to coral mining in the Maldives. Envir. Biol. Fish. 33: 367–380

    Google Scholar 

  • Faith, D. P., Minchin, P. R., Belbin, L. (1987). Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Vegetatio 69: 57–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Field, J. G., Clarke, K. R., Warwick, R. M. (1982). A practical strategy for analysing multispecies distribution patterns. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 8: 37–52

    Google Scholar 

  • Gee, J. M., Austen, M., De Smet, G., Ferraro, T., McEvoy, A., Moore, S., Van Gausbeki, D., Vincx, M., Warwick, R. M. (1992). Soft sediment meiofauna community responses to environmental pollution gradients in the German Bight and at the site of a former Dutch oil rig. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 91: 289–302

    Google Scholar 

  • Gee, J. M., Warwick, R. M., Schaanning, M., Berge, J. A., Ambrose, Jr., W. G. (1985). Effects of organic enrichment on meiofaunal abundance and community structure in sublittoral soft sediments. J. exp. mar. Biol. Ecol. 91: 247–262

    Google Scholar 

  • Gower, J. C. (1971). Statistical methods of comparing different multivariate analyses of the same data. In: Hodson, F. R., Kendall, D. G., Tautu, P. (eds.) Mathematics in the archaeological and historical sciences. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, p. 138–149

    Google Scholar 

  • Gray, J. S., Aschan, M., Carr, M. R., Clarke, K. R., Green R. H., Pearson, T. H., Rosenberg, R., Warwick, R. M. (1988). Analysis of community attributes of the benthic macrofauna of Frierfjord/Langesundfjord and in a mesocosm experiment. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 46: 151–165

    Google Scholar 

  • Hope, A. C. A. (1968). A simplified Monte Carlo significance test procedure. J. R. statist. Soc. (Ser. B) 30: 582–598

    Google Scholar 

  • Hurlbert, S. H. (1984). Pseudoreplication and the design of ecological field experiments. Ecol. Monogr. 54: 187–211

    Google Scholar 

  • Kendall, M. G. (1970). Rank correlation methods. Griffin, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenkel, N. C., Orloci, L. (1986). Applying metric and nonmetric multidimensional scaling to some ecological studies: some new results. Ecology 67: 919–928

    Google Scholar 

  • Kruskal, J. B. (1964). Multidimensional scaling by optimising goodness of fit to a non-metric hypothesis. Psychometrika 29: 1–27

    Google Scholar 

  • Kruskal, J. B, Wish, M., (1978) Multidimensional scaling. Sage Publications. Beverley Hills, California

    Google Scholar 

  • Mantel, N. (1967). The detection of disease clustering and a generalized regression approach Cancer Res 27: 209–220

    Google Scholar 

  • Mardia, K. V., Kent, J. T., Bibby, J. M. (1979). Multivariate analysis. Academic Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheffé, H. (1959) The analysis of variance. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Spence, I., Grael, J. (1974). The determination of the underlying dimensionality of an empirically obtaied matrix of proximities. Multiv. behavl Res. 9: 331–342

    Google Scholar 

  • Underwood, A. J. (1981). Techniques of analysis of variance in experimental marine biology and ecology. Oceanogr. mar. Biol. A. Rev. 19: 513–605

    Google Scholar 

  • Warwick, R. M. (1971). Nematode associations in the Exe estuary. J. mar. biol. Ass. U. K. 51: 439–454

    Google Scholar 

  • Warwick, R. M., Carr, M. R., Clarke, K. R., Gee, J. M., Green, R. H. (1988). A mesocosm experiment on the effects of hydrocarbon and copper pollution on a sublittoral soft-sediment meiobenthic community. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 46: 181–191

    Google Scholar 

  • Warwick, R. M., Clarke, K. R. (1991). A comparison of some methods for analysing changes in benthic community structure. J. mar. biol. Ass. U.K. 71: 225–244

    Google Scholar 

  • Warwick, R. M., Clarke, K. R., Gee, J. M. (1990a). The effect of disturbance by soldier crabs,Mictyris platycheles H. Milne Edwards, on meiobenthic community structure. J. exp. mar. Biol. Ecol. 135: 19–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Warwick, R. M., Clarke, K. R, Suharsono (1990b). A statistical analysis of coral community responses to the 1982–83 El Niño in the Thousand Islands, Indonesia. Coral Reefs 8: 171–179

    Google Scholar 

  • Warwick, R. M., Platt, H. M., Clarke, K. R., Agard, J., Gobin, J. (1990c). Analysis of macrobenthic and meiobenthic community structure in relation to pollution and disturbance in Hamilton Harbour, Bermuda. J. exp. mar. Biol. Ecol. 138: 119–142

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Communicated by J. Mauchline, Oban

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Clarke, K.R., Warwick, R.M. Similarity-based testing for community pattern: the two-way layout with no replication. Mar. Biol. 118, 167–176 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00699231

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00699231

Keywords

Navigation