anosim(dis, grouping, permutations=1000, strata)anosim with following items:Between for dissimilarities
    between classes and class name for corresponding dissimilarity
    within class.anosim operates directly on a
  dissimilarity matrix.  A suitable dissimilarity matrix is produced by
  functions dist or vegdist.  The
  method is philosophically allied with NMDS ordination
  (isoMDS), in that it uses only the rank order of
  dissimilarity values.  If two groups of sampling units are really different in their species
  composition, then compositional dissimilarities between the groups
  ought to be greater than those within the groups.  The anosim
  statistic $R$ is based on the difference of mean ranks between
  groups ($r_B$) and within groups ($r_W$):
$$R = (r_B - r_W)/(N/(N-1)/4)$$
The divisor is chosen so that $R$ will be in the interval $-1 \dots +1$, value $0$ indicating completely random grouping.
The statistical significance of observed $R$ is assessed by permuting the grouping vector to obtain the empirical distribution of $R$ under null-model.
  The function has summary and plot methods.  These both
  show valuable information to assess the validity of the method:  The
  function assumes that all ranked dissimilarities within groups 
  have about equal median and range.  The plot method uses
  boxplot with options notch=TRUE and
  varwidth=TRUE.
dist and vegdist for obtaining
  dissimilarities, and rank for ranking real values.  For
  comparing dissimilarities against continuous variables, see
  mantel.## There are no factors yet in example data set, so let's make one (this
## is real though).
reindeer <- c(rep("Grazed", 16), rep("Ungrazed", 8))
data(varespec)
vare.dist <- vegdist(varespec)
vare.ano <- anosim(vare.dist, reindeer)
summary(vare.ano)
plot(vare.ano)Run the code above in your browser using DataLab