Hint To see the influence of beta on the shape of the dendrogram, apply the complete
version of the R code (online material).
Compare this dendrogram to the previous one (Ward method).
4.7 Interpreting and Comparing Hierarchical Clustering
Results
4.7.1 Introduction
Remember that unconstrained clustering is a heuristic procedure, not a statistical test.
The choices of an association coefficient and a clustering method influence the
result. This stresses the importance of choosing a method that is consistent with
the aims of the analysis. The objects produced by hclust() contain the
1
2
3
7
4
6
10
11
12
13
14
5
9
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
26
27
28
29
30
23
24
25
Chord - Beta-flexible (beta=-0.25)
spe.ch
agnes (*, "flexible")
Height
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
Fig. 4.6 Beta-flexible clustering of a matrix of chord distance among sites (species data)
70
4 Cluster Analysis