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vegan (version 1.8-1)

mrpp: Multi Response Permutation Procedure of Within- versus Among-Group Dissimilarities

Description

Multiple Response Permutation Procedure (MRPP) provides a test of whether there is a significant difference between two or more groups of sampling units.

Usage

mrpp(dat, grouping, permutations = 1000, distance = "euclidean",
     weight.type = 1, strata)

Arguments

dat
data matrix or data frame in which rows are samples and columns are response variable(s), or a dissimilarity object or a symmetric square matrix of dissimilarities.
grouping
Factor or numeric index for grouping observations.
permutations
Number of permutations to assess the significance of the MRPP statistic, $delta$.
distance
Choice of distance metric that measures the dissimilarity between two observations . See vegdist for options. This will be used if dat was not a dissimilarity structure of a symmet
weight.type
choice of group weights. See Details below for options.
strata
An integer vector or factor specifying the strata for permutation. If supplied, observations are permuted only within the specified strata.

Value

  • The function returns a list of class mrpp with following items:
  • callFunction call.
  • deltaThe overall weighted mean of group mean distances.
  • E.deltaexpected delta, under the null hypothesis of no group structure. This is the mean of the permuted deltas.
  • PvalueSignificance of the test.
  • AA chance-corrected estimated of the distances explained by group identity; a value analogous to a coefficient of determination in a linear model.
  • distanceChoice of distance metric used; the "method" entry of the dist object.
  • weight.typeThe choice of group weights used.
  • boot.deltasThe vector of "permuted deltas," the deltas calculated from each of the permuted datasets.
  • permutationsThe number of permutations used.

Details

Multiple Response Permutation Procedure (MRPP) provides a test of whether there is a significant difference between two or more groups of sampling units. This difference may be one of location (differences in mean) or one of spread (differences in within-group distance). Function mrpp operates on a data.frame matrix where rows are observations and responses data matrix. The response(s) may be uni- or multivariate. The method is philosophically and mathematically allied with analysis of variance, in that it compares dissimilarities within and among groups. If two groups of sampling units are really different (e.g. in their species composition), then average of the within-group compositional dissimilarities ought to be less than the average of the dissimilarities between two random collection of sampling units drawn from the entire population.

The mrpp statistic $\delta$ is simply the overall weighted mean of within-group means of the pairwise dissimilarities among sampling units. The correct choice of group weights is currently not clear. The mrpp function offers three choices: (1) group size ($n$), (2) a degrees-of-freedom analogue ($n-1$), and (3) a weight that is the number of unique distances calculated among $n$ sampling units ($n(n-1)/2$).

The mrpp algorithm first calculates all pairwise distances in the entire dataset, then calculates $\delta$. It then permutes the sampling units and their associated pairwise distances, and recalculates a $\delta$ based on the permuted data. It repeats the permutation step permutations times. The significance test is simply the fraction of permuted deltas that are less than the observed delta, with a small sample correction. The function also calculates the change-corrected within-group agreement $A = 1 -\delta/E(\delta)$, where $E(\delta)$ is the expected $\delta$ assessed as the average of permutations.

If the first argument dat can be interpreted as dissimilarities, they will be used directly. In other cases the function treats dat as observations, and uses vegdist to find the dissimilarities. The default distance is Euclidean as in the traditional use of the method, but other dissimilarities in vegdist also are available.

References

P. W. Mielke and K. J. Berry. 2001. Permutation Methods: A Distance Function Approach. Springer Series in Statistics. Springer.

B. McCune and J. B. Grace. 2002. Analysis of Ecological Communities. MjM Software Design, Gleneden Beach, Oregon, USA.

See Also

anosim for a similar test based on ranks, and mantel for comparing dissimilarities against continuous variables, and vegdist for obtaining dissimilarities,

Examples

Run this code
data(dune)
data(dune.env)
dune.mrpp <- mrpp(dune, dune.env$Management)
dune.mrpp

# Save and change plotting parameters
def.par <- par(no.readonly = TRUE)
layout(matrix(1:2,nr=1))

plot(dune.ord <- metaMDS(dune), type="text", display="sites" )
ordihull(dune.ord, dune.env$Management)

with(dune.mrpp, {
  fig.dist <- hist(boot.deltas, xlim=range(c(delta,boot.deltas)), 
                 main="Test of Differences Among Groups")
  abline(v=delta); 
  text(delta, 2*mean(fig.dist$counts), adj = -0.5,
     expression(bold(delta)), cex=1.5 )  }
)
par(def.par)

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