Practical Statistics For Experimental Biologists

The design and analysis of biological experiments, and the subsequent successful handling of the large amounts of data generated requires a good working knowledge of statistical principles if reliable results are to be obtained. Familiar experiments present such principles.

Provides an excellent introductory text for students on the principles and methods of statistical analysis in the life sciences, helping them choose and analyse statistical tests for their own problems and present their findings. An understanding of statistical principles and methods is essential for any scientist but is particularly important for those in the life sciences. The field biologist faces very particular problems and challenges with statistics as "real-life" situations such as collecting insects with a sweep net or counting seagulls on a cliff face can hardly be expected to be as reliable or controllable as a laboratory-based experiment. Acknowledging the peculiarites of field-based data and its interpretation, this book provides a superb introduction to statistical analysis helping students relate to their particular and often diverse data with confidence and ease. To enhance the usefulness of this book, the new edition incorporates the more advanced method of multivariate analysis, introducing the nature of multivariate problems and describing the the techniques of principal components analysis, cluster analysis and discriminant analysis which are all applied to biological examples. An appendix detailing the statistical computing packages available has also been included. It will be extremely useful to undergraduates studying ecology, biology, and earth and environmental sciences and of interest to postgraduates who are not familiar with the application of multiavirate techniques and practising field biologists working in these areas.

All students and researchers in environmental and biological sciences require statistical methods at some stage of their work. Many have a preconception that statistics are difficult and unpleasant and find that the textbooks available are difficult to understand. Practical Statistics for Environmental and Biological Scientists provides a concise, user-friendly, non-technical introduction to statistics. The book covers planning and designing an experiment, how to analyse and present data, and the limitations and assumptions of each statistical method. The text does not refer to a specific computer package but descriptions of how to carry out the tests and interpret the results are based on the approaches used by most of the commonly used packages, e.g. Excel, MINITAB and SPSS. Formulae are kept to a minimum and relevant examples are included throughout the text.

Written in simple language with relevant examples, Statistical Methods in Biology: Design and Analysis of Experiments and Regression is a practical and illustrative guide to the design of experiments and data analysis in the biological and agricultural sciences. The book presents statistical ideas in the context of biological and agricultural sciences to which they are being applied, drawing on relevant examples from the authors’ experience. Taking a practical and intuitive approach, the book only uses mathematical formulae to formalize the methods where necessary and appropriate. The text features extended discussions of examples that include real data sets arising from research. The authors analyze data in detail to illustrate the use of basic formulae for simple examples while using the GenStat® statistical package for more complex examples. Each chapter offers instructions on how to obtain the example analyses in GenStat and R. By the time you reach the end of the book (and online material) you will have gained: A clear appreciation of the importance of a statistical approach to the design of your experiments, A sound understanding of the statistical methods used to analyse data obtained from designed experiments and of the regression approaches used to construct simple models to describe the observed response as a function of explanatory variables, Sufficient knowledge of how to use one or more statistical packages to analyse data using the approaches described, and most importantly, An appreciation of how to interpret the results of these statistical analyses in the context of the biological or agricultural science within which you are working. The book concludes with a guide to practical design and data analysis. It gives you the understanding to better interact with consultant statisticians and to identify statistical approaches to add value to your scientific research.

Regression, analysis of variance, correlation, graphical.

Statistical methods are a key part of of data science, yet very few data scientists have any formal statistics training. Courses and books on basic statistics rarely cover the topic from a data science perspective. This practical guide explains how to apply various statistical methods to data science, tells you how to avoid their misuse, and gives you advice on what's important and what's not. Many data science resources incorporate statistical methods but lack a deeper statistical perspective. If you’re familiar with the R programming language, and have some exposure to statistics, this quick reference bridges the gap in an accessible, readable format. With this book, you’ll learn: Why exploratory data analysis is a key preliminary step in data science How random sampling can reduce bias and yield a higher quality dataset, even with big data How the principles of experimental design yield definitive answers to questions How to use regression to estimate outcomes and detect anomalies Key classification techniques for predicting which categories a record belongs to Statistical machine learning methods that “learn” from data Unsupervised learning methods for extracting meaning from unlabeled data