Table 2.

Results of the partial least square (PLS) regression analysis. The variables whose effect is larger than expected by chance, that is, those whose square weights are larger than 1/(number of explanatory variables) are indicated in bold‐type font

Explanatory variables	Correlation with component 1	Square weight in component 1	Range of jackknifed square weights
Karst area	0.323	0.046	0.015–0.088
Agriculture land	0.238	0.077	0.020–0.131
Natural vegetation land	−0.135	0.054	0.007–0.093
Mean maximum temperature	−0.392	<0.001	<0.001–0.014
Mean precipitation	0.596	0.041	0.008–0.091
Days with temperatures ≤ 0ºC	0.527	0.018	0.001–0.043
Mean minimum temperature	−0.494	0.026	0.002–0.065
Mean temperature	−0.466	0.010	<0.001–0.033
Altitude	0.442	0.006	<0.001–0.027
Size of entrance (log‐transformed)	−0.120	<0.001	<0.001–0.008
Linear extension (log‐transformed)	−0.502	0.030	0.002–0.093
Water	0.043	0.006	<0.001–0.056
Trophic level	0.786	0.447	0.382–0.501
Speleogenesis	−0.843	0.240	0.165–0.280