Online supplement

Table 1 – List of all search terms used grouped by the nature of restriction desired.

Search terms used to restrict faunal types:
Benth*
Macrobenth*
Macrozoobenth*
Hyperbenth*
Epibenth*
Zoobenth*
Epifaun*
Faun*
Infaun*
Macrofaun*
Megafaun*
Hyperfaun*
Interstitial Specie*
Invertebrat*
Macroinvertebrat*
Search terms used to restrict to groups of organisms:
Assemblage*
Communit*
Specie*
Taxocen*
Aggregation*
Search terms used to restrict habitat types:
Estuar*
Coasta*
Marine
Ocean*
Shallow Shelf*
Shallowshelf*
Soft Sediment*
Soft-Sediment*
Softsediment*
Softbottom*
Soft Bottom*
Soft-Bottom*
Search terms used to restrict statistical methods: /
Agglomerative Hierarchical Cluste*
Akaike Information Criter*
Analys?s Curvilinear Component
Analys?s Curvilinear Distance
Analysis of Similarity
Arch Ef*ect
Artificial Neural Network*
Asymmetric Eigenvector Map*
Back-Propagation*
Back Propagation
Backward Propagation*
Baye* Theorem
Bayesian Neural Network*
Bootstrap*
Bray-Curtis Ordination
Bioenv
Canoco
Canonical
Canonical Analys?s
Canonical Analys?s of Principal Coordinate*
Canonical Correlation
Canonical Correlation Analys?s
Canonical Correlation Coordinates
Canonical Correspondence Analys?s
Canonical Gaussian Ordination
Canonical Variat*
Canonical Variat* Analys?s
Classification Analys?s
Classification and Regression Tree*
Clust* Analys?s
Correspondence Analys?s Partial Least Squares
Co-Correspondence Analys?s
Coenocline*
Co-Inertia
Co-Inertia Analys?s
Co-Kriging
Confirmatory Factor Analys?s
Conformal Eigenmap*
Conjugate Gradient Method
Constrained Additive Ordination
Constrained Ordination
Constrained Ordination Analys?s
Correspondence Analys?s
Data Mining
Decentered Correspondence Analys?s
Decorana
Detrended Canonical Correspondence Analys?s
Detrended Correspondence Analys?s
Direct Gradient Analys?s
Discriminant Analys?s
Discriminant Function
Discriminant Function Analys?s
Distance-Based Ordination
Distance-Based Redundancy Analys?s
Divisive Hierarchical Clustering
Eigenanalys?s
Empirical Orthogonal Function
Extended Empirical Orthogonal Function
Factor Analys?s
Factorial Analys?s
Fisher Discriminant Analys?s
Furthest Neighbour Sorting
Fuzzy Correspondence Analys?s
Fuzzy Pca
Fuzzy Set Ordination
Gaussian Mixture Model
Gaussian Ordination
Gaussian Process
Gauss--Newton Method
Generalized Additive Model*
Generalized Linear Model*
Genetic Algorithm*
Geodesic Distances
Gradient Analys?s
Hebbian Learning
Hessian Eigenmap*
Hessian Locally-Linear Embedding
Hessian-Based Locally Linear Embedding
Locally Linear Embedding
Hessian LLE
Hessian Matrix
Independent Component Analys?s
Independent Factor Analys?s
Indirect Gradient Analys?s
Isomap*
Isometric Feature Mapping
Kernel CVA
Kernel Function
Kernel ICA
Kernel PCA
Kernel Principal Component Analys?s
K-Means Cluster*
Kohonen Self-Organizing Map
Kriging
Laplacian Eigenmap*
Linea* Embedding
Linear Discriminant Analys?s
Locally Linear Embedding
Locally-Linear Embedding
Locally Weighted Scatterplot Smoothing
Machine Learning
Mantel Test
Maximum Covariance Analys?s
Maximum Likelihood
Maximum-Likelihood Canonical Gaussian Ordination
Maximum-Likelihood Factor Analys?s
Metric Multidimensional Scal*ing
Minimum Spanning Tree
Monte Carlo Permutation Test*
Moran's Eigenvector Map*
Multidimensional Fuzzy Set Ordination
Multidimensional Scaling
Multi-Layer Perceptron
Multiple Coinertia Analys?s
Multiple Co-inertia Analys?s
Multiple Correspondence Analys?s
Multiple Factor Analys?s
Multiple Linear Regression
Multiple Regression
Multiresponse Permutation Procedure
Multiscale Ordination
Multivariate Analys?s
Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline*
Multivariate Regression Tree*
Neural Network*
Nonlinear Canonical Correlation Analys?s
Non-Linear CCA
Nonlinear Complex Principal Component Analys?s
Nonlinear Dimensionality Reduction
Nonlinear Manifold Learning
Non-Linear PCA
Nonlinear PCA
Nonlinear Principal Component Analys?s
Nonlinear Singular Spectrum Analys?s
Nonlinear Support Vector Machine*
Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling
Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling
Non-Supervised Neural Network*
Non-Symmetric Correspondence Analys?s
Ordination
Partial Least Squares
Partial Analys?s
Partial Ordination
Path Analys?s
Permanova
Permutation Test*
Permutation Test* for Multivariate Analys?s of Similarit*
Polar Ordination
Polynomial PCA
Principal Component* Analys?s
Principal Coordinate*
Principal Co-Ordinate*
Principal Coordinat* Analys?s
Principal Coordinates of Neighbour Matrices
PCNM
Principal Curve*
Principal Response Curve*
Procruste* Analys?s
Procrustre*
Procuste*
Quadratic Reduced-Rank Vector Generalized Linear Model*
Quasi-Newton Method*
Radial Basis Function*
Random Forest*
Randomization Test
Reciprocal Averaging
Recurrent Artificial Neural Network*
Recurrent Neural Network*
Redundancy Analys?s
Regression Tree*
RLQ Analys?s
Rotated Principal Component Analys?s
Second Stage MDS
Second Stage NMDS
Self-Organizing Map*
Singular Value Decomposition
Species Response Curve
Stepwise Analys?s
Stepwise Multiple Regression
Structural Equation Model*ing
Supervised Learning
Support Vector Machine*
Support Vector Regression
Trend-Surface Analys?s
Twinspan
Unconstrained Ordination
Unsupervised Competitive Learning
Unsupervised Learning
Varimax Rotation
Vector Generalized Additive Model
Vector Generalized Linear Model*
Weighted Average

Table 2 Numbers and percentages of papers from journals sampled about the ecology of benthic marine and coastal habitats using multivariate techniques between 1982 and August 2012. (only journals with 4 or more papers were presented).

Journal / Number of papers / Percent (%) /
Marine Ecology Progress Series / 38 / 11.9
Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science / 38 / 11.9
Marine Pollution Bulletin / 31 / 9.7
Marine Environmental Research / 17 / 5.3
Hydrobiologia / 16 / 5.0
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom / 14 / 4.4
Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology / 12 / 3.8
Ecological Indicators / 11 / 3.5
Polar Biology / 11 / 3.5
Marine Ecology / 8 / 2.5
Deep Sea Research II / 7 / 2.2
Estuaries / 7 / 2.2
Continental Shelf Research / 6 / 1.9
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment / 5 / 1.6
Environmental Pollution / 5 / 1.6
Marine and Freshwater Research / 5 / 1.6
Ecological Applications / 5 / 1.6
Helgoland Marine Research / 5 / 1.6
Deep Sea Research I / 5 / 1.6
Journal of Sea Research / 5 / 1.6
Marine Biology / 4 / 1.3
Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems / 4 / 1.3
Estuaries and Coasts / 4 / 1.3
ICES Journal of Marine Science / 4 / 1.3
Others / 51 / 16.0%
Total / 318 / 100.0

Table 3. Countries on the basis of the numbers and percentages of total papers produced on the topic of marine benthic ecology using multivariate techniques between 1982 and August 2012

Country / Number of
papers / Percent
(%) /
England / 37 / 11.6
USA / 35 / 11.0
Italy / 30 / 9.4
Spain / 27 / 8.5
Australia / 22 / 6.9
Portugal / 19 / 6.0
Norway / 17 / 5.3
New Zealand / 17 / 5.3
France / 13 / 4.1
Brazil / 10 / 3.1
Germany / 9 / 2.8
Greece / 8 / 2.5
Canada / 7 / 2.2
Japan / 7 / 2.2
China / 6 / 1.8
India / 5 / 1.6
Sweden / 5 / 1.6
Chile / 5 / 1.6
Mexico / 5 / 1.6
Russia / 4 / 1.3
Belgium / 4 / 1.3
Argentina / 4 / 1.3
South Africa / 4 / 1.3
Netherlands / 4 / 1.3
Uruguay / 3 / 0.9
Poland / 2 / 0.6
Korea / 2 / 0.6
Tunisia / 1 / 0.3
Finland / 1 / 0.3
Turkey / 1 / 0.3
Ghana / 1 / 0.3
Singapore / 1 / 0.3
Denmark / 1 / 0.3
Trinidad / 1 / 0.3
Total / 318 / 100.0