Detrended correspondence analysis

[1] DCA was created in 1979 by Mark Hill of the United Kingdom's Institute for Terrestrial Ecology (now merged into Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) and implemented in FORTRAN code package called DECORANA (Detrended Correspondence Analysis), a correspondence analysis method.

According to Hill and Gauch,[1] DCA suppresses two artifacts inherent in most other multivariate analyses when applied to gradient data.

Ter Braak and Prentice (1987, p. 121) cite a simulation study analysing two-dimensional species packing models resulting in a better performance of DCA compared to CA.

DCA is an iterative algorithm that has shown itself to be a highly reliable and useful tool for data exploration and summary in community ecology (Shaw 2003).

Ter Braak and Prentice (1987, p. 122) warn against the non-linear rescaling of the axes due to robustness issues and recommend using detrending-by-polynomials only.

Comparison of Correspondence Analysis and Detrended Correspondence Analysis on example (ideal) data. See the arch effect in CA and its solution in DCA.