Response to Stimuli
6. Data compilation, analysis plan and data consultation
1. Before carrying out your analysis, it is important to have a plan on what you want to do. Based on the data you have collected how will you analyze/display it? What specific question(s) are you trying to address? Tip: Go back to your scientific question, hypothesis, and prediction – how will you present your data in the most appropriate way that will make it easy to draw a conclusion?
- Sketch out the type of figure(s) that will best address your question(s). Think about what you have learned throughout the semester about summarizing and displaying data.
- Enter your data in an appropriate format into a spreadsheet.
2. You will sign up for a 15-minute data consultation with your lab instructor – information will be provided during the week 2 lab on when this will occur. This is one-on-one time with your lab instructor for questions and advice on displaying behavioural data in a meaningful manner. Before you have the meeting:
- Be able to talk about your data – articulate the questions that you are addressing with your proposed analysis, bring the sketch of the figure(s) you plan on making
- Coordinate as a team who will bring a laptop to work with.
- Make a list of questions you would like to discuss with your instructor.
If using physiological response:
- First, convert your data to be measuring CO2 evolved, rather than the raw values.
- Next, convert the data to be mass specific by dividing the CO2 evolved by the mass of that individual/group of individuals.
- Produce a physical response curve using the mass specific CO2 evolved over time for each of your organisms (note: “export” the data from SparkVue and open it in Excel for quick data analysis). Make it as a scatterplot with connecting lines. Use the physical response curve to extract the information that you are interested in.
- If you are interested in the log phase, you will need to calculate the slope at the steepest point in the curve. I recommend doing this in Excel, but you can print off your figure and calculate it by hand. Here are 3 ways to do it in Excel:
- Identify the time at which the log phase begins and ends. Use the slope function to calculate the slope (type into a cell =SLOPE(highlight y range, highlight x range)
- simply use the x,y values at the start and end time of log phase
- Insert a straight line in your figure from the start to end of the log phase. Extrapolate from the graph your x,y values from the beginning and end of the log phase and use those to calculate the slope.
