Introduction to CCA Bibliography 86-93

Introduction

The development of canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) by Cajo ter Braak in the mid 1980's and its implementation in his computer program CANOCO (along with other constrained ordination methods such as redundancy analysis (RDA), detrended canonical correspondence analysis and hybrid methods) have revolutionised quantitative community ecology and related subjects such as limnology. CCA, RDA, etc incorporate regression and ordination into a single extremely powerful method for multivariate direct gradient analysis called canonical or constrained ordination. Besides these direct gradient analysis techniques, CANOCO also permits 'partial' analysis where the effects of external variables are removed statistically, the statistical testing of the relationship between response variables (usually species) and external predictor variables by means of several different types of Monte Carlo permutation tests, the reconstruction ('calibration') of environmental variables (e.g. lake-water pH) from biological data (e.g. fossil diatoms), statistical analysis of multivariate data from field experiments, etc.

Our bibliography attempts to list all publications about canonical correspondence analysis and its linear relative redundancy analysis that have been published since Cajo ter Braak's original paper on CCA in 1986. The bibliography covers the period 1986 to 1993. We list 378 entries listed alphabetically by first author. Each entry is numbered, and is indexed in terms of 107 topics that serve as index entries for the bibliography, grouped into 3 main groups. These are (1) Methods used (e.g. canonical correspondence analysis, redundancy analysis, hybrid analysis, Monte Carlo permutation tests), (2) Subject (e.g. algology, ecology, limnology, marine biology, palaeolimnology), and (3) Organisms studied (e.g. birds, diatoms, fungi, zooplankton). In addition, the various topics that each publication covers are shown in brackets after each reference. Reference is also given for one publication using CCA that we have not seen. This bibliography thus lists a total of 379 publications.

In the eight years since Cajo ter Braak first published about CCA in 1986 and brought redundancy analysis (= constrained principal components analysis) to people's attention, CCA, RDA, and their close relatives have been used in very many different subjects, not only in community ecology and biogeography, but also in the study of ecological dynamics, ecological impacts, ecological management, analysis of field experimental data, conservation, limnology, palaeoecology, and palaeolimnology. After community ecology (190 entries), limnology (86 entries) and palaeolimnology (49 entries) are the subjects that most use CCA or RDA (or at least get published!), followed by studies on ecological impacts (37 entries), ecological dynamics (35 entries), management (28 entries), and marine biology (25 entries). Geographically the authors of the 379 publications show a not unexpected concentration on the Netherlands, followed by Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Finland, Canada, and the USA. Australia is barely represented. Since the first bibliography by HJBB and HAA for the period 1986-1991, the main obvious developments are the increased use of RDA in non-ecological studies, the greater use of Monte Carlo permutation tests, and the use of partial CCA and DCCA.

We are grateful to the staff of the University of Bergen Library for helping us obtain many publications not available locally, to the Olaf Grolle Olsens Legat for financial support for the publication of this bibliography, to John Anderson, John Line, and Michael Palmer for some additional references, and to Cajo ter Braak for much advice and help, many discussions about canonical correspondence analysis, CANOCO, and their uses, and for providing additional references.

We would naturally be most grateful to readers who draw our attention to any errors or omissions.

Bergen
H. J. B. Birks, [email protected]
October 1994
Sylvia M. Peglar
Heather A. Austin

Last updated on Monday, March 28, 2011 by Philippe Casgrain