So I typed in all the data for the ordination. Of course I cannot save it as a .wk1 file from Excel 2007. So I opened it in SPSS.....bingo, you can save things from THAT as .wk1 files. BUT. SPSS adds its own layer of goofiness and I have tried EVERYTHING to make the file work as a .wk1 file in PC-Ord.
Ugh. I suppose what I try next is load the thing onto my flash drive, go find a computer with Excel 2013 on it, and see if it will do the file conversion.
I wish this were easier. I have a sinking suspicion this new analysis is going to show me nothing new, but I have to do it anyway.
It still counts as an hour of research work if you don't get anything useful out of it, right? Figuring out what DOESN'T work is still a form of progress? I hope.
***
It occurs to me that some of my gentle readers might only know "ordination" as the word used when a pastor is officially commissioned and becomes a pastor. Well, it also has a data analysis usage. Essentially, it's a form of matrix algebra (to really oversimplify) that allows you to compare a series of samples (here, the stands I sampled) based on numerous (multivariate) attributes (here: the relative dominance of tree species). It gives you a diagram showing the most "similar" samples to one another, and ranks them in degree of relatedness. It's pretty useful in plant ecology but as I said before, I've never used it for fewer than 20 samples at a time, so I'm not sure how well this will work.
HOWEVER, it turns out that Excel 2003 may allow the .wk1 conversion....and I still have Excel 2003 on the computer at home. So I'm gonna take my flashdrive with the file on it home, and hopefully, will have a working .wk1 file for tomorrow morning.
Persistence, I has it.
No comments:
Post a Comment