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micro micro
wrote...
Posts: 170
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11 years ago
Hi there. I'm currently working on a report (based on fieldwork) where samples have been collected on field by different groups from different habitats e.g. from the dry zone, sublittoral, seagrass etc. And I am asked to calculate the mean total abundance, total abundance and mean total species and total species for the habitats for comparative reasons. However the problem is that the number of samples carried out by each group in the different habitats are not equal. Say group 1 performed 10 samples for seagrass, group 2 performed 5 samples from the same habitat and group 3 performed 7 samples. How do you normalize the data to make it a fair test? As for calculating the mean total abundance, that is easy because the no. of individuals collected by group 1 is divided by the no. of samples and the same for the different groups however what about the 'Total Abundance' and 'Total Species Number'? Cheers.
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wrote...
Donated
Trusted Member
11 years ago
Hi there. I'm currently working on a report (based on fieldwork) where samples have been collected on field by different groups from different habitats e.g. from the dry zone, sublittoral, seagrass etc. And I am asked to calculate the mean total abundance, total abundance and mean total species and total species for the habitats for comparative reasons. However the problem is that the number of samples carried out by each group in the different habitats are not equal. Say group 1 performed 10 samples for seagrass, group 2 performed 5 samples from the same habitat and group 3 performed 7 samples. How do you normalize the data to make it a fair test?

It's not like you're comparing one sample to the other sample - one verses one verses one. You are comparing averages, so sample size of each doesn't necessarily matter. If you'd like, you could eliminate 5 from the first sample (the outliers, for instance), and use even numbers for each, 5 from area one, 5 from area two, etc. Hope that helps.
micro Author
wrote...
11 years ago
Thanks for your reply biolove; much appreciated. I do get your point and although what you said applies to when it comes to calculating "mean total species" and "mean total abundance", I also need to calculate "total abundance" and "total species" which therefore do not involve a 'mean' hence if group 1 found 20 organisms by performing 30 quadrats while group 2 found 10 organisms by performing 10 quadrats, simply adding 20+10 to get the total abundance would not make it a fair test since group one carried out more quadrats.
wrote...
Donated
Trusted Member
11 years ago
You're welcome, so what did you have in mind?
micro Author
wrote...
11 years ago
Comparing total abundance and total number of species between the different groups. (Note: total not mean).

Also, does calculating mean total no. of species involve taking the no. of different species and dividing by the number of samples?
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