Opening a data set

To use ECOM you must open two data sets. One will hold the biological data and the second the environmental (physical) variables.

Use Biological File|Open Biological or Biological File|Reopen Biological

and Environmental File|Open Environmental or Environmental File|Reopen Environmental

to open the file dialogs to select the data files for analysis. The default file type for ECOM files is *.CSV - which is the standard file extension for comma delimited files.

Once a file has been selected the screen will appear as follows:

Initial screen showing raw data for the Dune_species.csv file supplied with ECOM. Species names are shown in the first column and sample code names, site 1 onwards are the column titles. At the bottom are the 6 tabs used to select the Raw Data grids, the Working Data grids, data set summary statistics and scatter plot options.