ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with numerical procedures that have commonly been used in chemotaxonomic and molecular studies of filamentous fungi. In order to use a numerical algorithm to group organisms, it is necessary to first calculate a measure of resemblance between the organisms. To determine groups based on resemblance it is necessary to calculate the resemblance of each organism to each other organism. The construction of the data matrix is an important part of grouping the organisms, as this is the form in which the experimental data are analyzed. Data presented tor numerical analysis do not have to be in a binary rorm, and quantitative and qualitative values may be used directly. Probably the most commonly used resemblance coefficients are the association coefficients. There is a wide selection of distance coefficients in use with fungal taxonomic data. Many distance coefficients are based on measures of the distances between organisms in character or attribute space.
