Functional data analysis of multi-species abundance and occupancy data sets

Multi-species indicators are widely used to condense large, complex amounts of information on multiple separate species by forming a single index to inform research, policy and management. Much detail is typically lost when such indices are constructed. Here we investigate the potential of Functional Data Analysis, focussing upon Functional Principal Component Analysis (FPCA), which can be easily carried out using standard R programs, as a tool...