Identification of Fine-Scale Marine Benthic Ecoclines by Multiple Parallel Ordination

Table 6

Kendall’s rank correlation coefficients τ between environmental variables and site scores along DCA axis 1, calculated separately for subsets of sites near the positive (Subset+; 𝑛=8) and negative ends (Subset−; 𝑛=22; sites 4 and 6 are included in both subsets) of the axis. Correlation coefficients τ > 0.6 are shown in bold. See Table 2 for description of environmental variables.

Var	Subset+		Subset−
	τ	𝑃	τ	𝑃
DEM derived
Aspect_E	–0.21	0.548	–0.01	0.956
Aspect_N	0.14	0.720	–0.04	0.824
BPI	0.07	0.905	0.19	0.239
Depth	–0.93	0.000	–0.71	0.000
Seabed_curv	0.07	0.905	0.14	0.371
Slope	0.07	0.905	–0.02	0.911
Current model
Current_bottom	0.14	0.720	–0.06	0.696
Current_surface	–0.50	0.109	–0.19	0.239
Change_curr_bottom	–0.07	0.905	0.13	0.434
Change_curr_surface	–0.43	0.179	–0.22	0.160
Direction_curr_E	0.11	0.708	–0.11	0.479
Direction_curr_N	–0.14	0.720	0.21	0.166
Sediment features
Mud content	–0.64	0.031	0.28	0.071
Sed_kurt	–0.43	0.179	0.30	0.054
Sed_med	0.64	0.031	–0.20	0.185
Sed.skew	–0.55	0.061	0.38	0.014
Sed.sort	0.11	0.708	0.14	0.381
Other variables
BMD	–0.50	0.109	–0.33	0.036
Penetration_depth	–0.43	0.179	0.00	1.000
CN	0.64	0.031	0.19	0.215
TOC	–0.43	0.179	–0.17	0.283
TN	–0.55	0.061	–0.25	0.113
VEAS_dist	0.50	0.109	0.26	0.091