Should the Mantel test be used in spatial analysis?

351 citations recorded by the source corpus.

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

Testing the Mantel statistic with a spatially‐constrained permutation procedure (2019, background): “The null hypothesis H0 associated with this testing procedure states that “the distances in DX are not linearly related to the corresponding distances in DY” (Legendre et al., 2015).”
Comparative analysis of diversity and environmental niches of soil bacterial, archaeal, fungal and protist communities reveal niche divergences along environmental gradients in the Alps (2021, background): “However, the low spatial correlation observed may reflect the limitations of using spatial data with Mantel tests (Legendre et al., 2015) rather than a genuine lack of spatial relationship.”
Landscape Genomics: Understanding Relationships Between Environmental Heterogeneity and Genomic Characteristics of Populations (2017, methodology): “Mantel tests have been severely criticized for various reasons, and alternative approaches should be used whenever possible (Balkenhol et al. 2009; Legendre and Fortin 2010; Guillot and Rousset 2013; Legendre et al. 2015).”