An Introduction to Vegetation Analysis: Principles, practice and interpretation

TO VEGETATION ANALYSIS Principles, practice and interpretation D.R.CAUSTON Department of Botany and Microbiology, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth London UNWIN HYMAN Boston Sydney Wellington © D. R. Causton, 1988 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. Published by the Academic Division of Unwin Hyman Ltd 15/17 Broadwick Street, London W1V 1FP, UK Allen & Unwin Inc., 8 Winchester Place, Winchester, Mass. 01890, USA Allen & Unwin (Australia) Ltd, 8 Napier Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia Allen & Unwin (New Zealand) Ltd in association with the Port Nicholson Press Ltd, 60 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington, New Zealand First published in 1988 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Causton, David R. An introduction to vegetation analysis: principles, practice and intepretation. 1. Botany-Ecology-Mathematics I. Title 581.5'247 QK901 ISBN-13: 978-0-04-581025-3 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-011-7981-2 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-011-7981-2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Causton, David R. An introduction to vegetation analysis. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Botany-Ecology-Methodology. 2. Plant communities-Research-Methodology. 3. Vegetation surveys. 4. Vegetation classification. I. Title. QK90I.C33 1987 581.5 87-19327 ISBN-13: 978-0-04-581025-3 Typeset in 10 on 12 point Times by Mathematical Composition Setters Ltd, Salisbury and Biddies of Guildford Preface This book has been written to help students and their teachers, at various levels, to understand the principles, some of the methods, and ways of interpreting vegetational and environmental data acquired in the field.

Table of Contents:
1 Introduction.- Nature of vegetation and analytical approaches.- Purposes of vegetation analysis.- Phytosociological and more objective methods.- Samples.- Types of data.- 2 Field methods I.- Primary survey — many species.- More detailed field work — one or a few species.- Plotless sampling.- 3 Fundamental principles of analytical methods.- The geometric model.- Classification and ordination.- Normal and inverse analyses.- Qualitative and quantitative data.- Species of low occurrence in a data set — retain or discard?.- 4 Case studies — introduction.- Artificial Data.- Iping Common — a lowland heath.- Coed Nant Lolwyn — a deciduous wood.- 5 Association between species and similarity between stands.- Concepts.- Qualitative data.- Quantitative data.- Comparisons of similarity coefficients.- 6 Classification.- Normal Association Analysis.- Types of classification.- Divisive monothetic methods.- Agglomerative polythetic methods.- Divisive polythetic methods.- Comparison of the methods by the examples results.- Inverse classifications.- Nodal Analysis (Lambert & Williams 1962).- 7 Ordination.- A classification of ordinations.- Direct Gradient Analysis — one factor.- Direct Gradient Analysis — many factors.- Indirect Gradient Analysis — one factor.- Indirect Gradient Analysis — many factors (ordination sensu stricto).- Polar ordination.- Non-polar ordination.- Comparisons of ordination methods.- 8 Correlations between vegetation and environment.- Single species.- Several species.- Environmental factors in associations.- 9 Case studies — analyses.- Iping Common.- Coed Nant Lolwyn.- Concluding remarks on vegetation analysis results.- References.- Indices.