Correlations Between Forest Layers in the Swan Valley, Montana

Abstract
Compositional patterns of forest layers (tree, shrub, herb, bryoid, and epiphyte) are weakly correlated in the Swan Valley. While one can roughly predict the composition of one layer based upon the composition of another layer, different strata do not change composition across environmental gradients at the same rate or in the same pattern. The relative position of two or more stands in species space is different for different layers. Evidence in support of this conclusion was derived from: (1) correlation of dissimilarity matrices, (2) correlation of stand placement on ordination axes, and (3) comparison of stand groups defined by cluster analysis.