envfit: Fits an Environmental Vector or Factor onto an Ordination

Description

The function fits environmental vectors or factors onto an ordination. The projection of points onto vectors have maximum correlations with corresponding environmental variables, and the factors show the averages of factor levels.

Usage

## S3 method for class 'default':
envfit(X, P, permutations = 0, strata, choices=c(1,2), ...)
## S3 method for class 'formula':
envfit(formula, data, ...)
## S3 method for class 'envfit':
plot(x, choices = c(1,2), arrow.mul = 1, at = c(0,0), axis = FALSE, 
    p.max = NULL, col = "blue", add = TRUE, ...)
vectorfit(X, P, permutations = 0, strata, choices=c(1,2),
      display = c("sites", "lc"), w = weights(X), ...)
factorfit(X, P, permutations = 0, strata, choices=c(1,2)
      display = c("sites", "lc"), w = weights(X), ...)

Arguments

Ordination configuration.

Matrix or vector of environmental variable(s).

permutations

Number of permutations for assessing significance of vectors or factors.

formula, data

Model formula and data.

A result object from envfit.

choices

Axes to plotted.

arrow.mul

Multiplier for vector lengths.

The origin of fitted arrows in the plot.

axis

Plot axis showing the scaling of fitted arrows.

p.max

Maximum estimated $P$ value for displayed variables. You must calculate $P$ values with setting permutations to use this option.

col

Colour in plotting.

add

Results added to an existing ordination plot.

strata

An integer vector or factor specifying the strata for permutation. If supplied, observations are permuted only within the specified strata.

display

Use ordinary site scores or linear combination scores ("lc") in constrained ordination (cca, rda, capscal

Weights used in fitting (concerns mainly cca and decorana results which have nonconstant weights).

...

Parameters passed to scores.

Value

Functions vectorfit and factorfit return lists of classes vectorfit and factorfit which have a print method. The result object have the following items:
arrowsArrow endpoints from vectorfit. The arrows are scaled to unit length.
centroidsClass centroids from factorfit.
rGoodness of fit statistic: Squared correlation coefficient
permutationsNumber of permutations.
pvalsEmpirical P-values for each variable.
Function envfit returns a list of class envfit with results of vectorfit and envfit as items. Function plot.envfit scales the vectors by correlation.

Details

Function envfit finds vectors or factor averages of environmental variables. Function plot.envfit adds these in an ordination diagram. If X is a data.frame, envfit uses factorfit for factor variables and vectorfit for other variables. If X is a matrix or a vector, envfit uses only vectorfit. Alternatively, the model can be defined a simplified model formula, where the left hand side must be an ordination result object or a matrix of ordination scores, and right hand side lists the environmental variables. The formula interface can be used for easier selection and/or transformation of environmental variables. Only the main effects will be analysed even if interaction terms were defined in the formula. Functions vectorfit and factorfit can be called directly. Function vectorfit finds directions in the ordination space towards which the environmental vectors change most rapidly and to which they have maximal correlations with the ordination configuration. Function factorfit finds averages of ordination scores for factor levels. Function factorfit treats ordered and unordered factors similarly.

If permutations $> 0$, the `significance' of fitted vectors or factors is assessed using permutation of environmental variables. The goodness of fit statistic is squared correlation coefficient ($r^2$). For factors this is defined as $r^2 = 1 - ss_w/ss_t$, where $ss_w$ and $ss_t$ are within-group and total sums of squares.

User can supply a vector of prior weights w. If the ordination object has weights, these will be used. In practise this means that the row totals are used as weights with cca or decorana results. This means that sites with lower totals will have lower weights. If you do not like this, but want to give equal weights to all sites, you should set w = NULL. The weighted fitting gives similar results to biplot arrows and class centroids in cca. For complete similarity between fitted vectors and biplot arrows, you should set display = "lc" (and possibly scaling = 2).

Examples

Run this code

data(varespec)
data(varechem)
library(MASS)
ord <- metaMDS(varespec)
(fit <- envfit(ord, varechem, perm = 1000))
plot(ord)
plot(fit)
plot(fit, p.max = 0.05, col = "red")
## Adding fitted arrows to CCA. We use "lc" scores, and draw
## arrows separately to control their lengths.
ord <- cca(varespec ~ Al + P + K, varechem)
plot(ord, display = c("sp", "lc"), type="p")
text(ord, display = "bp", col = "red", arrow=2)
fit <- envfit(ord, varechem, perm = 1000, display = "lc")
plot(fit, arrow = 2, p.max = 0.05)
## Class variables, formula interface, and displaying the
## inter-class variability with `ordispider'
data(dune)
data(dune.env)
attach(dune.env)
ord <- cca(dune)
fit <- envfit(ord ~ Moisture + A1, dune.env)
plot(ord, type = "n")
ordispider(ord, Moisture, col="skyblue")
points(ord, display = "sites", col = as.numeric(Moisture), pch=16)
plot(fit, arrow=2, cex=1.2)