An Ordination Technique Based on the Best Possible Stand‐Defined Axes and Its Application to Vegetational Analysis

An ordination technique for the analysis of vegetation data is described. The procedure resembles the Wisconsin method in the use of stands to define axes and Beals' formula to calculate stand axis positions. Differences from the Wisconsin method are: (1) axes are spatially related in a geometrically acceptable manner and (2) the best possible stand—defined axes are objectively selected. The method is simpler to understand than principal components "factor" analysis, and much less computation is required if there are many species in the data. Without modification of the method, a three—dimensional ordination was obtained for each of three sets of data, two from the North American prairies and one from the Canadian boreal forest. Hence, the technique objectively selects axes from "real" data in accordance with its design, but as yet we cannot say how effective it is in the display and interpretation of species interrelationships.

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