[R-sig-eco] Package 'compositions': Interpreting dist() output

[Rich Shepard]

   Data sets have been scaled and closed using acomp(). The dist() function
returns a matrix of Aitchison distances row-by-row in the data set. Example:

           2004         2005         2006        2011          2012
2005    0.5917687
2006    0.7084941    1.1382195 
2011    0.5796871    0.3503394    0.9175847 
2012    1.3615670    0.8098764    1.7682454    0.9206943
2013    1.4955697    1.2024123    1.6751463    1.0146711    1.2160550

   The compositions book has a brief sidebar on dist() on pages 40-41 with
simple examples but no discussion of how to use the results.

   How do I interpret this output? Can I extract insight into the variability
of this data set from these distances? Can I use these within-data-set
distances to compare differerent sets of the same types of parts? Ideally,
ecological insights could be derived from these distances.

Rich