one of the main assignments for the biostatistics course i'm teaching is to devise and execute a small 'independent project' that will make use of the techniques that the students will be learning this semester. i've been deliberately vague so far about the details because i don't want to constrain anyone's thinking about what he or she might want to do, and some interesting ideas are already beginning to form. (see the blogs that this one links to).
i realize, though, that i do need to give some sort of guidance to my students (especially those who have never been involved in a research project before), but rather than a formalized checklist of things it has to include, etc., i though it would be better to model the sort of project i had in mind with my own research.
dr. david heins and i have started working on another project together that will build on his work with the effects of infection with cestode parasites on the life-histories of threespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). my contribution will include gathering data on the body shapes of fish from several different lakes in alaska (and possibly from the UK) and conducting the analyses to test the hypotheses that parasitism is associated with differences in overall body shape and/or differences in the shape of the head.
i hope to begin gathering the data sometime this week.
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2 comments:
Oh sweet! I used to work in Dr. Heins' lab, and he told me about your project. It sounds pretty interesting. I myself never worked with threespine, but I have dissected hundreds maybe even a couple thousand of ninespine. Which body shape do you find is more differentially parasitized?
You write very well.
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