Looking for ecological limits in a vegetation cover

Abstract

The difference between two floristic lists can be measured with Hamming’s relative distance, i.e. the number of species that are present in only one of the two relevés is divided by the total number of species in both lists together. Examining distance variations along a series of contiguous quadrats helps find ecological limits in the vegetation cover. The application to a savanna transect in Côte d’Ivoire is discussed.