This function is a wrapper for cmdscale
, which performs a
Principal Coordinates Analysis on the distance matrix given. In addition, it
plots an ordination of the genetic distance matrix given, showing the
relative distance between each of the species in the dataset. It is
presented as an alternative to the neighbour-joining trees which are
frequently used for the visualisation of DNA barcoding data. NJ trees show
hypotheses of relationships, which are inappropriate for the questions
usally asked in DNA barcoding studies.
The distance between the centroids of the clusters are roughly proportional
to the genetic distances between the species. NOTE: it is important to
remember that the plot shows only one plane of a multi-dimensional space.
Species with overlapping circles are not necessarily conspecific. Further
exploration is required.