The book is specifically targeted for upper-division and graduate students in wildlife biology, forestry, and ecology, and for professional wildlife scientists and natural resource managers, but it will be valuable to researchers in any of the biological sciences.

The first edition covers the classic multivariate techniques and provides the essential background for more advanced techniques. In particular, the first edition provides a simplied introduction and overview of ordination techniques and then largely focuses on principal components analysis. While this is perhaps an effective introduction to ordination, it is by no means sufficient to cover the breadth of indirect and direct gradient analysis techniques. Specifically, ordination techniques based on a unimodal (as opposed to linear) model, and constrained (i.e., canonical) ordination techniques, are only superficially covered in the first edition. In the second edition, we plan to cover in depth the full suite of linear and unimodal unconstrained and constrained ordination techniques. In addition, we plan to expand our coverage of cluster analysis techniques to include a more in-depth description and example of two-way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN). Finally, we plan to add a second set of examples to each chapter.

It is our intention to complete revisions for the second edition, contingent upon publisher approval, during 2001-02 and release the new edition sometime in 2003.