Nestedness for Dummies (NeD): a User Friendly Web Interface for Exploratory Nestedness Analysis

Recent theoretical advances in nestedness analysis have led to the introduction of several alternative metrics to overcome most of the problems biasing the use of matrix `temperature' calculated by Atmar's Nestedness Temperature Calculator (NTC). However, all of the currently available programs for nestedness analysis lack the user friendly appeal that has made NTC one of the most popular community ecology programs. NeD is an intuitive open source application for nestedness analysis that can be used online or locally under dierent operating systems. NeD is able to automatically handle dierent matrix format, has batch functionalities and produces an output that can be easily copied and pasted to a spreadsheet. In addition to numerical results, NeD provides a graphic representation of the matrix under examination and of the corresponding maximally packed matrix. NeD allows users to select among the most used nestedness metrics, and to combine them with dierent null models. Integrating easiness of use with the recent theoretical advances in the eld, NeD provides researchers not directly involved in theoretical debates with a simple yet robust statistical tool for a more conscious performance of nestedness analysis. NeD can be accessed at http://purl.oclc.org/ned.

STRONA Giovanni;  GALLI Paolo;  SEVESO Davide;  MONTANO Simone;  FATTORINI Simone; 

2014-08-18

JOURNAL STATISTICAL SOFTWARE

JRC89344

1548-7660,   

http://www.jstatsoft.org/v59/c03,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC89344,