Function implements Kruskal's (1964a,b) non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) using monotone regression and primary (“weak”) treatment of ties. In addition to traditional global NMDS, the function implements local NMDS, linear and hybrid multidimensional scaling.
monoMDS(dist, y, k = 2, model = c("global", "local", "linear", "hybrid"),
    threshold = 0.8, maxit = 200, weakties = TRUE, stress = 1,
    scaling = TRUE, pc = TRUE, smin = 1e-4, sfgrmin = 1e-7,
    sratmax=0.999999, ...)
# S3 method for monoMDS
scores(x, display = "sites", shrink = FALSE, choices,
    tidy = FALSE, ...)
# S3 method for monoMDS
plot(x, display = "sites", choices = c(1,2), type = "t", ...)
# S3 method for monoMDS
points(x, display = "sites", choices = c(1,2), select, ...)
# S3 method for monoMDS
text(x, display = "sites", labels, choices = c(1,2),
    select, ...)Returns an object of class "monoMDS". The final scores
  are returned in item points (function scores extracts
  these results), and the stress in item stress. In addition,
  there is a large number of other items (but these may change without
  notice in the future releases). There are no species scores, but these
  can be added with sppscores function.
Input dissimilarities.
Starting configuration. A random configuration will be generated if this is missing.
Number of dimensions. NB., the number of points \(n\) should be \(n > 2k + 1\), and preferably higher in non-metric MDS.
MDS model: "global" is normal non-metric MDS
    with a monotone regression, "local" is non-metric MDS with
    separate regressions for each point, "linear" uses linear
    regression, and "hybrid" uses linear regression for
    dissimilarities below a threshold in addition to monotone
    regression. See Details.
Dissimilarity below which linear regression is used alternately with monotone regression.
Maximum number of iterations.
Use primary or weak tie treatment, where equal
    observed dissimilarities are allowed to have different fitted
    values. if FALSE, then secondary (strong) tie treatment is
    used, and tied values are not broken.
Use stress type 1 or 2 (see Details).
Scale final scores to unit root mean squares.
Rotate final scores to principal components.
Convergence criteria: iterations stop
    when stress drops below smin, scale factor of the gradient
    drops below sfgrmin, or stress ratio between two iterations
    goes over sratmax (but is still \(< 1\)).
A monoMDS result.
Kind of scores. Normally there are only scores for
    "sites", but "species" scores can be added with
    sppscores.
Shrink back species scores if they were expanded in
      wascores.
Return scores that are compatible with ggplot2:
    all scores are in a single data.frame, score type is
    identified by factor variable code ("sites" or
    "species"), the names by variable label. These scores
    are incompatible with conventional plot functions, but they can
    be used in ggplot2.
Dimensions returned or plotted. The default NA
    returns all dimensions.
The type of the plot: "t" for text, "p"
    for points, and "n" for none.
Items to be displayed.  This can either be a logical
          vector which is TRUE for displayed items or a vector of
          indices of displayed items.
Labels to be use used instead of row names. If
    select is used, labels are given only the selected items in
    the order they occur in the scores.
Other parameters to the functions (ignored in
    monoMDS, passed to graphical functions in plot.).
NMDS is iterative, and the function stops when any of its
  convergence criteria is met. There is actually no criterion of
  assured convergence, and any solution can be a local optimum. You
  should compare several random starts (or use monoMDS via
  metaMDS) to assess if the solutions is likely a global
  optimum.
The stopping criteria are:
maxit:Maximum number of iterations. Reaching this
     criterion means that solutions was almost certainly not found,
     and maxit should be increased.
smin:Minimum stress. If stress is nearly zero,
     the fit is almost perfect. Usually this means that data set is
     too small for the requested analysis, and there may be several
     different solutions that are almost as perfect. You should reduce
     the number of dimensions (k), get more data (more
     observations) or use some other method, such as metric scaling
     (cmdscale, wcmdscale).
sratmax:Change in stress. Values close to one mean almost unchanged stress. This may mean a solution, but it can also signal stranding on suboptimal solution with flat stress surface.
sfgrmin:Minimum scale factor. Values close to zero mean almost unchanged configuration. This may mean a solution, but will also happen in local optima.
Peter R. Michin (Fortran core) and Jari Oksanen (R interface).
There are several versions of non-metric multidimensional
  scaling in R, but monoMDS offers the following unique
  combination of features:
“Weak” treatment of ties (Kruskal 1964a,b), where tied dissimilarities can be broken in monotone regression. This is especially important for cases where compared sites share no species and dissimilarities are tied to their maximum value of one. Breaking ties allows these points to be at different distances and can help in recovering very long coenoclines (gradients). Functions in the smacof package also hav adequate tie treatment.
Handles missing values in a meaningful way.
Offers “local” and “hybrid” scaling in addition to usual “global” NMDS (see below).
Uses fast compiled code (isoMDS of the
    MASS package also uses compiled code).
Function monoMDS uses Kruskal's (1964b) original monotone
  regression to minimize the stress. There are two alternatives of
  stress: Kruskal's (1964a,b) original or “stress 1” and an
  alternative version or “stress 2” (Sibson 1972). Both of
  these stresses can be expressed with a general formula
$$s^2 = \frac{\sum (d - \hat d)^2}{\sum(d - d_0)^2}$$
where \(d\) are distances among points in ordination configuration,
  \(\hat d\) are the fitted ordination distances, and
  \(d_0\) are the ordination distances under null model.  For
  “stress 1” \(d_0 = 0\), and for “stress 2”
  \(d_0 = \bar{d}\) or mean distances. “Stress 2”
  can be expressed as \(s^2 = 1 - R^2\),
  where\(R^2\) is squared correlation between fitted values and
  ordination distances, and so related to the “linear fit” of
  stressplot.
Function monoMDS can fit several alternative NMDS variants that
  can be selected with argument model.  The default model =
  "global" fits global NMDS, or Kruskal's (1964a,b) original NMDS
  similar to isoMDS (MASS).  Alternative
  model = "local" fits local NMDS where independent monotone
  regression is used for each point (Sibson 1972).  Alternative
  model = "linear" fits a linear MDS. This fits a linear
  regression instead of monotone, and is not identical to metric scaling
  or principal coordinates analysis (cmdscale) that
  performs an eigenvector decomposition of dissimilarities (Gower
  1966). Alternative model = "hybrid" implements hybrid MDS that
  uses monotone regression for all points and linear regression for
  dissimilarities below or at a threshold dissimilarity in
  alternating steps (Faith et al. 1987). Function
  stressplot can be used to display the kind of regression
  in each model.
Scaling, orientation and direction of the axes is arbitrary.
  However, the function always centres the axes, and the default
  scaling is to scale the configuration of unit root mean
  square and to rotate the axes (argument pc) to principal
  components so that the first dimension shows the major variation.
  It is possible to rotate the solution so that the first axis is
  parallel to a given environmental variable using function
  MDSrotate.
Faith, D.P., Minchin, P.R and Belbin, L. 1987. Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Vegetatio 69, 57--68.
Gower, J.C. (1966). Some distance properties of latent root and vector methods used in multivariate analysis. Biometrika 53, 325--328.
Kruskal, J.B. 1964a. Multidimensional scaling by optimizing goodness-of-fit to a nonmetric hypothesis. Psychometrika 29, 1--28.
Kruskal, J.B. 1964b. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling: a numerical method. Psychometrika 29, 115--129.
Minchin, P.R. 1987. An evaluation of relative robustness of techniques for ecological ordinations. Vegetatio 69, 89--107.
Sibson, R. 1972. Order invariant methods for data analysis. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B 34, 311--349.
data(dune)
dis <- vegdist(dune)
m <- monoMDS(dis, model = "loc")
m
plot(m)
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