PRIMER / PERMANOVA Essentials

With Marti J. Anderson

PRIMER-e is pleased to announce a hybrid course (offered in person and online) in Multivariate Analysis for Ecology & Other Sciences to be held over one week at the Graduate School of Oceanography, Bay Campus, University of Rhode Island, USA

Overview

PRIMER / PERMANOVA Essentials, June 8th – 12th, 2026

Participants can register to attend either online or in person.

Registration Fees (in $USD)		In Person	Online only
EARLY BIRD On or before April 30th, 2026	Professional	USD $1,190	USD $930
EARLY BIRD On or before April 30th, 2026	Full-time Student	USD $890	USD $610
AFTER April 30th, 2026	Professional	USD $1,340	USD $930
AFTER April 30th, 2026	Full-time Student	USD $990	USD $610

All prices are in US dollars ($USD). Note that GST will be applied for New Zealand residents.

This 5-day course will cover the essentials – a suite of core non-parametric methods implemented in PRIMER software, as well as several key semi-parametric methods encapsulated in PERMANOVA+.

Sessions will run daily, Monday to Friday, from 8:30 am to 5:30 pm on each day. Online participants will join the course live in USA Eastern Daylight Time (EDT, UTC -4 hours). Each day will include a mixture of lectures and computer lab sessions to implement the new methods and techniques learned on example datasets. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss and analyse their own data in consultation with the presenter.

Those who register to attend in person are expected to bring their own laptop to the venue. A free fully functional (but time-limited) licence of our latest software, PRIMER 8 with PERMANOVA+, will be made available to registered participants for trial use during the course. At the completion of the course, participants will receive an offer for a special discount on software subscriptions. (Note that PRIMER is a Windows-only product, so Macs need to run in Windows emulation.) This course will cater both to those who are new to multivariate analysis and to those who are familiar with PRIMER methods but would like a refresher regarding the latest techniques and approaches. This course is designed for scientists and research practitioners; it will emphasise the achievement of a conceptual understanding of multivariate methods, with demonstrations of how to implement these methods in the software and interpret results. No prior background in statistics is required.

OUTLINE OF TOPICS

The topics covered in this course shall include:

Properties of multivariate data (summary statistics, shade plots, histograms, draftsman plots, etc.);
Pre-treatment options (transformations, normalization, standardization, & dispersion weighting);
Measures of resemblance: distance, similarity and dissimilarity (Euclidean, Bray-Curtis, Jaccard, Sorensen, etc.);
Cluster analysis (CLUSTER), including tests for significant structure within clusters (SIMPROF) to permit non-arbitrary classifications of samples or variables (species);
Ordination via projection: principal components analysis (PCA); principal coordinate analysis (PCO);
Ordination to preserve inter-sample relationships via non-metric, metric or threshold metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS, mMDS, tmMDS);
Relating biotic to abiotic data, including tests of association between resemblance matrices (RELATE), and finding optimal subsets of environmental (or other) variables that generate a ‘best’ match to patterns among samples based on species variables (BEST – BIOENV);
Non-parametric permutation test for differences among a priori groups of samples (analysis of similarities (ANOSIM), and ordination of bootstrap averages;
Finding important variables (SIMPER and BEST – BVSTEP);
Diversity measures (DIVERSE); Taxonomic distinctness; Taxonomic resemblance
Partitioning variation; tests for centroid differences among groups (PERMANOVA), including one-way and two-way cases, tests of interactions, constructing a priori contrasts and pairwise tests. Accounting for heterogeneity of dispersions.
Tests for homogeneity of multivariate dispersions and comparisons of beta diversity (PERMDISP);
Complex multi-factor experimental designs, identifying fixed and random factors that are nested or crossed with one another (PERMANOVA);
Multivariate control charts for detecting unusual observations in space or time (e.g., monitoring).
Fitting multivariate response data (e.g., species) to continuous predictor variables (e.g., environmental), including model selection (DISTLM) and visualising fitted variation using dissimilarity-based redundancy analysis (dbRDA);
Graphical tools for effective presentation of results, including matrix displays and a variety of plot types, animations of ordinations captured to video files, centroid plots, bubble plots and multi-variable segmented bubble plots.

VENUE

All sessions will be held live online and in person at Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, 215 South Ferry Road, Narragansett, USA. Online participants will join the course via Google Meet. For further local information or if you have questions regarding logistics at the venue, please contact the local host: Kristy Lewis kristy.lewis@uri.edu. For information regarding registration or any other course-related matters, contact the PRIMER-e admin team directly (tel: +64-9-869-2230, email: primer@primer-e.com.

REGISTRATION COSTS

The cost for registration includes all course materials, and – for in-person participants – coffee/tea and snacks during breaks, lunch, free Wi‑Fi, and a temporary licence key to use PRIMER 8 with PERMANOVA+ software (fully functional, for the duration of the course), but not accommodation, other meals, or the separate cost to purchase an annual subscription to the software (offered at discounted prices for workshop participants, see below).

The prices to register are:

Registration Fees (in $USD)		In Person	Online only
EARLY BIRD On or before April 30th, 2026	Professional	USD $1,190	USD $930
EARLY BIRD On or before April 30th, 2026	Full-time Student	USD $890	USD $610
AFTER April 30th, 2026	Professional	USD $1,340	USD $930
AFTER April 30th, 2026	Full-time Student	USD $990	USD $610

All prices are in US Dollars ($USD). Note that GST will be applied to New Zealand residents.

DISCOUNTED SOFTWARE PRICES FOR COURSE PARTICIPANTS

We are pleased to offer all course participants (attending online or in person) a special discounted price of 10% off our standard price to purchase an annual subscription for PRIMER 8 Software. Details regarding this discount offer will be provided to participants at the end of the course.

REGISTRATION

To register, please fill out the registration form available on the PRIMER-e website (or download to the right) and return it directly to primer@primer-e.com to secure your place. The deadline for registration and payment is Monday, May 25th 2026. Late registrants will only be accepted if space permits. Unfortunately, we cannot permit attendance at the course unless payment for registration has been received in full by PRIMER-e prior to the commencement of the course. Please get in touch with us directly if you have any questions primer@primer-e.com, and especially if you would like:

to obtain a quote for your registration,
to register more than one individual from your organisation and pay on a single invoice (please include separate registration forms for each individual participant).

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Marti J. Anderson is the Director of PRIMER-e (Quest Research Limited), a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ) and Distinguished Professor Emerita in the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study (NZIAS) at Massey University in Auckland. Her core research is in community ecology, biodiversity, multivariate analysis, experimental design and resampling methods, with a special focus on developing novel statistical methods for ecology. She has developed all of the statistical methods in PERMANOVA+ and especially enjoys engaging in the dynamic interactions with students, academics and professionals that have become a trademark of the PRIMER/PERMANOVA+ international courses, shedding new light on multivariate data.

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Terms and Conditions

Please refer to PRIMER-e’s Standard Terms and Conditions for Courses. In addition, below are PRIMER-e’s Specific Terms and Conditions for this Course.

Deadlines: Registration and payment must be received by the PRIMER-e office no later than Monday, May 25th, 2026. Please use one form per person.
Payment information: Registrants will be invoiced directly upon receipt by the PRIMER-e office of a completed registration form. All payments are to be made in $USD.
Payment options are detailed on the invoice and include:
- by Credit/Debit Card;
- by Direct Electronic Bank Transfer
GST: New Zealand residents will need to pay 15% Goods-and-Services Tax (GST), applied at invoice.
Cancellation and Refund policy: The course organisers should be notified of cancellations in writing. If cancellation occurs before Monday, May 25th, 2026, the total course fee will be refunded, less any associated bank fees and administration costs. If you cancel after the deadline stated above, you may send a substitute person. Please notify the PRIMER-e office and provide us with the appropriate registration details for the substitute at the time of cancellation. In the absence of a substitute, we will still refund the payment (less administration costs) if we succeed in filling your place. “No shows” are non-refundable and are liable for the full registration costs. In the unlikely event of a course cancellation, PRIMER-e will refund registration fees in full, but shall not refund nor be liable for any additional associated costs, expenses, or losses incurred by registrants.

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