I have some data on spatial and temporal variation of macrobenthic species. I tried to test the difference between seasons and sites, and noticed that PERMANOVA is recommended in the literature. (But I think the better way is to use non-metric multidimensional scaling.)
What is PERMANOVA? How does it work? How should I interpret the results of this test? What is the permutation in PERMANOVA? When to use it instead of MANOVA?