Kruskal's MDS results

Hi Dieter,

I'll take a shot at this.
As I understand it, the stress is telling you how the ordination distances compare with original dissimilarities that you calculated.

It is a measure how well your ordination has done in representing the relationship of your sites. Note that the stress will differ depending on how many dimensions are used. I believe the default is k = 2 in isoMDS.

Hope this helps,
Michael

Dear List,

I'm trying to interpret the results of the Kruskal's
Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling algorithm (isoMDS, MASS
package).

The 'goodness of fit' is reported as "The final stress
achieved (in percent)".

What does this mean exactly? I've tried to google for an
answer but I've not come up with a definitive answer.

Regards,
Dieter


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Dieter Vanderelst
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Active Perception Lab
University of Antwerp
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Michael Denslow

Graduate Student
I.W. Carpenter Jr. Herbarium [BOON]
Department of Biology
Appalachian State University
Boone, North Carolina U.S.A.

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