Assignment:
Summary
For this assignment, you will need to design, run, and report on an experiment. A list of example questions is given below. You can choose to investigate one of these questions, or you can address another question of interest to you after receiving prior approval from me. You first need to develop a biological hypothesis that addresses your chosen question. You then need to develop a statistical null hypothesis and identify an appropriate statistical test to evaluate it.
Next, you need to design an experiment that will yield data suitable for addressing your chosen biological and statistical hypotheses. Remember to carefully consider principles of experimental design such as replication, independence, and randomisation. You'll then run your experiment and analyse your data. Finally, you will need to interpret the results of your statistical analyses in light of your biological and statistical hypotheses. The report you submit should be in the form of a journal article.
You will also be required to submit your experimental data and accompanying metadata in archival format, print outs of your R output from the console, and a commented R script containing all of functions you used to generate the output. You are required to do your analyses in R.
Learning Objectives
This assignment is designed to help you meet some of the major learning objectives of this unit. In particular, through this assignment, you will go through all of the steps involved in designing and implementing a biological experiment:
1. Develop testable hypotheses based on general scientific questions.
2. Design an unconfounded experiment to test scientific hypotheses.
3. Choose an appropriate statistical test to analyse experimental data.
4. Carry out statistical tests using the computer package RStudio.
5. Correctly interpret results from statistical tests.
6. Clearly present the findings of the experiment and statistical analyses using figures, tables, and text.
Questions
Here is a list of biological questions you could investigate for your experiment:
1. What colour flowers do pollinators prefer?
2. Do snow pea sprouts grow faster with increases in light, water, or nutrients?
3. Are germination rates of plants affected by the addition of salinity, coffee grounds and/or worm tea to soil?
4. Does body temperature affect the activity (e.g. running speed, time to leave a circle, time to first movement) of invertebrates (e.g. crickets, worms, ants, mealworms)?
5. Do different food types differ in their attractiveness to ants?
6. Are slugs more attracted to fresh or rotting vegetables, and do they show preference for particular vegetables?
7. How are hatching times/growth rates of brine shrimp (sea monkeys) influenced by environmental conditions (e.g. food availability, temperature, salinity, pH)?
8. Is formation of bread mould affected by factors such as bread type (e.g. white versus wheat), moisture level, or packaging (e.g. uncovered, plastic-bagged)?
Attachment:- Experiment Report.rar