Multivariate analysis is an important technique for ecological data process. Multiple co-inertia analysis (MCIA) combines two ordination methods for species data matrix and environmental data matrix, respectively. It is comparatively new and has not been frequently used in research practice. Here, MCIA was applied to the study of Phellodendron amurense communities in the Dongling Mountain of Beijing, North China. MCIA provided useful results in describing community-environment relations. It provided consistent results with canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) with somewhat superior in eigenvalues and percentage of interpreting variance. Elevation, slope aspect, soil depth, litter thickness, etc. were significant in affecting the endangered medicinal plant species and communities. MCIA is greatly useful in the studies of plant community-environment relationships, and has advantages in solving fuzzy and non-linear problems. It should be widely used in community ecology studies in future.

multiple co-inertia analysis, quantitative method, ordination, community-environment relationship.

Received: February 1, 2022; Accepted: March 28, 2022; Published: May 13, 2022

How to cite this article: Naiqi Song, Bin Zhang, Shiguang Su and Jintun Zhang, Multiple co-inertia analysis applied to ecological study of endangered-medicinal plant communities of Phellodendron amurense, JP Journal of Biostatistics 20 (2022), 65-82.
http://dx.doi.org/10.17654/0973514322014

This Open Access Article is Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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