Figure 5.

Two dimensional metric dimensional scaling (MDS) plot illustrating the similarity between the responses of the groups’ median ESD to the environmental covariates selected. The smoothing curves from the Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) modelling the global gradients in log-transformed median Equivalent Spherical Diameter (ESD, µm) of the zooplankton groups (estimated for various plankton nets) as a function of ten environmental covariates and displaying a deviance explained > 40%. The smoothing curves were combined into a multivariate data series to compute Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) distances and perform partitioning around medoids (PAM) clustering. This way the GAMs were clustered into four clusters representing combinations of zooplankton groups and plankton nets that exhibit similar median ESD-covariate relationships.