15

ECOM II

4

Creating and editing data sets

Creating and editing a data set

Preparing large data sets in a spreadsheet program

Large data files

Data entry from within ECOM

Editing existing data

Saving edited data or creating a new data file

Maximum size of the data and computation speed

4.1

Creating and editing a data set

You are recommended to prepare large data sets using a standard spread sheet

program such as Excel. Small data sets can be created directly within ECOM, but

editing facilities are limited. Both the biological and physical data are organised in the

same way and stored as a CSV, comma delimited file.

Preparing large data sets in a spreadsheet program

Data entry from within ECOM

Editing existing data

Saving edited data or creating a new data file

4.2

Preparing large data sets in a spreadsheet program

The best way to enter large data sets is to use a spreadsheet such as Excel or Lotus

1 2 3.

A biological or environmental data set is stored as a comma delimited text file with

the extension .csv. It has the following form:

A biological data set:

           Title1

Title2

Title3

Species1

21

1

5

Species2

15

5

0

Species3

0

7

0

Species4

1

9

0

Species5

0

0

8

An environmental data set:

Title1        Title2      

Title3

Variable 1

10

14

58

Variable 2

5

5

0

Variable 3

0

7

0

Variable 4

1

1

1

Variable 5

0

0

1

The normal arrangement of community data within ECOM is to have the samples

(quadrats) as columns and the species or environmental variables as the rows. The

data can be arranged with the species forming the columns as the transpose option

within ECOM can be used to switch columns and rows. Numbers can be either integer

or real.

You do not need to create this file within ECOM. It can be created using Microsoft

Copyright 2004  PISCES Conservation Ltd