Taxonomic levels, in marine community studies, revisited

Abstract

The utility of analyses of abundance data at taxonomic levels higher than species, in the interpretation of results from marine surveys, is examined using nematode and macrofauna data from a sublittoral dredgings disposal site and from an intertidal site known to be influenced by heavy metal pollution. The concept of a "second-stage' multi-dimensional scaling, in which rank correlations between pairs of similarity matrices themselves become the elements of a second similarity matrix, an ordination of which gives a summary of the conclusions, is introduced. -from Authors