PRINCIPAL COMPONENTS ANALYSIS OF DATA FROM SAXICOLOUS BRYOPHYTE VEGETATION AT STEPS BRIDGE, DEVON: I A QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF VARIATION IN THE VEGETATION

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Abstract
The aim of the series of three papers, of which this is the first, is to produce a rigorous quantitative analysis of variation in vegetation and to correlate the results of the analysis with environmental variation. A general account is given of the Steps Bridge area and of the vegetation studied. The collection of samples of contact between species in the saxicolous bryophyte vegetation is described. To compare the effects of different methods of data processing, four matrices were calculated: a correlation and a dispersion matrix based on the joint and total occurrences of pairs of species in the samples, and a correlation and a covariance matrix based on the occurrences of pairs of species with all the other species in the samples. Results of principal components analyses of the four matrices are presented and compared and the appropriate circumstances for the use of each type of matrix are indicated. The components analyses are analyses of the distributional relationships of the species and are based on rigorous statistical treatment throughout.

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