ABSTRACT: The spatial pattern of specific populations or communities plays an important role in ecological theories such as species diversity, community succession and stability. A method based on canonical correspondence ordination (CCA) and constrained ordination was used to partition the variation observed in the species abundance data matrix into 4 independent components: spatial, environmental, spatial + environmental, undetermined. Mantel and partial Mantel test results were in accordance with CCA results.

KEY WORDS: North Sea . Meroplankton . Community structure . Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) . Constrained ordination. Monte Carlo permutation test . Mantel statistics

Published in MEPS Vol. 128 (1995) on November 23
ISSN: 0171-8630. Copyright © Inter-Research, Oldendorf/Luhe, 1995