THE EVALUATION OF MULTISPECIES PATTERN

Using artificial data, techniques that have been proposed for analyzin g multiple species pattern in vegetation, are compared. No single meth od was capable of detecting, clearly and unambiguously, all scales of pattern in all cases, and the effectiveness of the different methods w as found to depend on the scales of pattern of the component species a nd on how the patterns of individual species are combined. Some improv ements for the application of the popular multi-scale ordination metho d are suggested. Several sets of field data are analyzed and the resul ts used to illustrate a discussion of the existence and nature of mult i-species pattern in vegetation and how it is to be evaluated.