Thanks Dr. Halkos,

I am testing different isolates of Phytophthora infestans (independent variables) for variation in causing different epidemiological components (dependent variables) on potato. Should I use MANOVA?

Dear Abdul,

“ANOVA” stands for “Analysis of Variance” while “MANOVA” stands for “Multivariate Analysis of Variance.”

The ANOVA method includes only one dependent variable while the MANOVA method includes multiple, dependent variables.

ANOVA uses three different models for experimentations; random-effect, fixed-effect, and multiple-effect methods to determine the differences in means which is its main objective while MANOVA determines if the dependent variables get significantly affected by changes in the independent variables.

http://www.differencebetween.net/science/mathematics-statistics/difference-between-anova-and-manova/

Further reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MANOVA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_comparisons

http://ibgwww.colorado.edu/~carey/p7291dir/handouts/manova1.pdf

Thanks Vagelas,

Explanation and provided links are very useful and helpful

Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) simultaneously analyzes the

relationship of 2 or more metric dependent variables and several non‐metric independent variables. A related procedure is multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) which can be used to control factors other than the included independent variables.