Abstract
Cambridgeshire data collected for the BSBI’s Atlas 2020 project include 347,496 records at monad (1 km) or finer resolution. We used these data to cluster taxa by spherical k-means to produce 21 clusters of taxa with similar patterns of distribution. Some of the clusters correspond to well-defined habitats such as chalk grassland, ancient woodland, traditional fenland, and saline riversides and roadsides. Other clusters were less expected, corresponding to arable clayland, washland (the Ouse and Nene washes), waste ground and garden escapes. There was a cluster of ubiquitous species and another of common arable weeds. The distributions of the clusters are displayed as coincidence maps. Some species are intermediate between two clusters. These can be recognised by their relatively poor goodness of fit to any one cluster. The clusters differ markedly in ecological attributes and whether they include rare or threatened species. We interpret these differences using Ellenberg values and the vascular plant Red List for England.
Highlights
IntroductionTwo of us (MOH, CDP) have been interested in methods of clustering species distribution data
For several years, two of us (MOH, CDP) have been interested in methods of clustering species distribution data
On 31 December 2019, data collection for BSBI’s Atlas 2020 project was completed, and the Cambridgeshire vice-county recorder (JDS) thought it would be interesting to look at patterns of distribution in the county
Summary
Two of us (MOH, CDP) have been interested in methods of clustering species distribution data This has resulted in analyses at the scale of the European continent (Finnie et al, 2007), Britain and Ireland (Preston et al, 2011; Preston et al, 2013), our local county (Preston & Hill, 2019) and meadows in a 25. On 31 December 2019, data collection for BSBI’s Atlas 2020 project was completed, and the Cambridgeshire vice-county recorder (JDS) thought it would be interesting to look at patterns of distribution in the county. Such an analysis would complement the information in Alan Leslie’s monumental Cambridgeshire flora (Leslie, 2019), where distributions are given only as lists of hectads
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
