Thesis (BS Applied Mathematics) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2008

The study of structures and relationships is a common concern among community ecologists. One class of methods used to address this concern is the ordination techniques. Classical one-table ordination techniques like principal component analysis (PCA), correspondence analysis (CA) and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) are routinely used by community ecologists to analyze community structures. On the other hand, the use of two-table ordination techniques is utilized in the study of relationships among various components of communities. There are numerous approaches in the study of relationships and each approach is directed to answer specific ecological objectives. One of the approaches is the class on inter-table ordination techniques. Inter-table ordination methods are methods that make use of classical ordination techniques in a novel way. In this study, the researcher extended the usefulness Of inter-battery analysis (a type of inter-table ordination technique) so that it can handle data sets with variables that are not quantitative. Furthermore, three new methods were then used, along with existing multivariate methods, to analyze the structures and relationships of a particular data set in ecology. The results of the analyses showed that the choice of which method to use depends upon the type of variables and ecological objectives. The extended and new approaches offer new ways of analyzing relationships in ecological data.