Generates simulated environmental variables

Simulates environmental variables used for generating species abundances. Environmental variables may be correlated, and may follow different distributions.

Usage

make.env(n, elen, emean, edistr, ecor, ndim)

Arguments

n: Number of samples to be generated.
elen: Range of the environmental variables. Single number or vector of length ndim.
emean: Mean of the environmental variables. Single number or vector of length ndim.
edistr: Distribution of the environmental variables. Currently 'uniform' and 'Gaussian' are supported.
ecor: Correlation matrix of the environmental variables. Object can be generated with cor.mat.fun. If omitted environmental variables are not correlated.
ndim: Number of environmental variables to generate.

Value

Matrix of environmental variables. n rows and ndim columns.

References

Minchin, P.R. (1987) Multidimensional Community Patterns: Towards a Comprehensive Model. Vegetatio, 71, 145-156. doi:10.1007/BF00039167

Author

Mathias Trachsel and Richard J. Telford

Examples

env.vars <- make.env(100,
  elen = rep(100, 10), emean = rep(50, 10),
  edistr = "uniform", ndim = 10
)