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mvabund

The goal of mvabund is to provide tools for a model-based approach to the analysis of multivariate abundance data in ecology (Yi Wang et al. 2011), in particular, testing hypothesis about the community-environment association. Abundance measures include counts, presence/absence data, ordinal or biomass data.

This package includes functions for visualising data, fitting predictive models, checking model assumptions, as well as testing hypotheses about the community–environment association.

Installation

mvabund is available on CRAN and can be installed directly in R:

install.packages("mvabund")

library(mvabund)

Alternatively, you can install the development version of mvabund from GitHub with:

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("eco-stats/mvabund")

library(mvabund)

Getting Started

We highly recommend you taking a good read of our vignette over at our website before launching into the mvabund. Alternatively, you can access the vignettes in R by:

remotes::install_github("eco-stats/mvabund", build_vignettes = TRUE)

vignette("mvabund")

Show mvabund your support

citation("mvabund")
#> To cite package 'mvabund' in publications use:
#> 
#>   Wang Y, Naumann U, Eddelbuettel D, Wilshire J, Warton D (2022).
#>   _mvabund: Statistical Methods for Analysing Multivariate Abundance
#>   Data_. R package version 4.2.1,
#>   <https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=mvabund>.
#> 
#> A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is
#> 
#>   @Manual{,
#>     title = {mvabund: Statistical Methods for Analysing Multivariate Abundance Data},
#>     author = {Yi Wang and Ulrike Naumann and Dirk Eddelbuettel and John Wilshire and David Warton},
#>     year = {2022},
#>     note = {R package version 4.2.1},
#>     url = {https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=mvabund},
#>   }

Spot a bug?

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Other resources

mvabund in action

Check out the list of studies that uses mvabund in their analyses here

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Version

Install

install.packages('mvabund')

Monthly Downloads

1,892

Version

4.2.8

License

LGPL (>= 2.1)

Maintainer

David Warton

Last Published

December 16th, 2025

Functions in mvabund (4.2.8)

antTraits

Ant data, with species traits
deviance.manylm

Model Deviance
manylm

Fitting Linear Models for Multivariate Abundance Data
glm1path

Fits a path of Generalised Linear Models with LASSO (or L1) penalties, and finds the model that minimises BIC.
glm1

Fits a Generalised Linear Models with a LASSO (or L1) penalty, given a value of the penalty parameter.
formulaUnimva

Create a List of Univariate Formulas
manyany

Fitting Many Univariate Models to Multivariate Abundance Data
meanvar.plot

Construct Mean-Variance plots for Multivariate Abundance Data
mvabund-internal

Internal mvabund Objects
manyglm

Fitting Generalized Linear Models for Multivariate Abundance Data
mvabund

Multivariate Abundance Data Objects
mvabund-package

Statistical methods for analysing multivariate abundance data
logLik.manylm

Calculate the Log Likelihood
manylm.fit

workhose functions for fitting multivariate linear models
extend.x.formula

Extend a Formula to all of it's Terms
plot.manylm

Plot Diagnostics for a manylm or a manyglm Object
tikus

Tikus Island Dataset
ridgeParamEst

Estimation of the ridge parameter
summary.manylm

Summarizing Linear Model Fits for Multivariate Abundance Data
residuals.manyglm

Residuals for MANYGLM, MANYANY, GLM1PATH Fits
spider

Spider data
summary.manyglm

Summarizing Multivariate Generalized Linear Model Fits for Abundance Data
mvformula

Model Formulae for Multivariate Abundance Data
plot.mvabund

Plot Multivariate Abundance Data and Formulae
predict.traitglm

Predictions from fourth corner model fits
plot.manyany

Plot Diagnostics for a manyany or glm1path Object
predict.manylm

Model Predictions for Multivariate Linear Models
traitglm

Fits a fourth corner model for abundance as a function of environmental variables and species traits.
shiftpoints

Calculate a shift for plotting overlapping points
plotMvaFactor

Draw a Mvabund Object split into groups.
predict.manyglm

Predict Method for MANYGLM Fits
unabund

Remove the mvabund Class Attribute
solberg

Solberg Data
cv.glm1path

Fits a path of Generalised Linear Models with LASSO (or L1) penalties, and finds the best model by corss-validation.
coefplot.manyglm

Plots the coefficients of the covariates of a manyglm object with confidence intervals.
anova.manyglm

Analysis of Deviance for Multivariate Generalized Linear Model Fits for Abundance Data
anova.manylm

ANOVA for Linear Model Fits for Multivariate Abundance Data
anova.traitglm

Testing for a environment-by-trait (fourth corner) interaction by analysis of deviance
boxplot.mvabund

Boxplots for multivariate abundance Data
best.r.sq

Use R^2 to find the variables that best explain a multivariate response.
Tasmania

Tasmania Dataset
anova.manyany

Analysis of Deviance for Many Univariate Models Fitted to Multivariate Abundance Data