Opening the examples

Opening the examples

After launching the PRIMER desktop by clicking on its icon, the first step is to open a worksheet of multivariate data, e.g. species abundances over a number of samples. The user’s own data will typically be read into the program from Excel (*.xls or *.xlsx), though various text format input options are also provided (or you can type entries into a newly created PRIMER worksheet and edit it directly – though this is not commonly done). However, the PRIMER 7 installation comes with a number of real data sets, in a folder \Examples v7, needed as examples for this manual. You can access this with Get Examples V7 on the Help menu, which prompts you for a directory in which to locate the \Examples v7 folder. It is assumed (for brevity) throughout this manual that this is simply the top level C:\ directory. So, C:\Examples v7 contains sub-directories for each study, in which the data files have usually been saved in PRIMER 7’s internal binary format (*.pri, which is unreadable by other software or earlier versions of PRIMER). To open such a species $\times$ samples matrix, e.g. of nematode species abundances in marine sediments from 27 sites over five creeks of the Fal estuary, SW England (whose sediments are contaminated by heavy metals from historic mining), take File>Open from the main menu, navigate to the \Examples v7\Fal benthic fauna directory, select the file Fal nematode abundance.pri, and click Open to display the species data matrix in the desktop. Taking Edit>Properties you will see that PRIMER-format *.pri files carry other information on Title, Data type, Array size, whether Samples are found in •Columns or •Rows, and a Description. With Edit>Factors a subsidiary sheet of three factors is also seen to be linked to this work¬sheet: Creek, a creek abbreviation, the full Creek name and a numeric Position factor of the sampling sites’ location down the creek – other factors could be typed in with Add.