Friday, April 13, 2007

ANOVA and spiders

When I was going over Chapter 7 in G&E, I had a hard time getting through it because I kept trying to apply everything to my spider study. I even drew in my own little chart next to the one in the book showing a two-way layout in ANOVA. My two factors in this case will be mate order (whether the male is the 1st or 2nd to be mated with the female) and % of intromissions (20,50,80). These are my two categorical predictor variables. My response variable is the percent of eggs hatched. I hope to see a significant response from the % of intromissions, which supports the hypothesis that sperm number determines paternal advantage. I do not expect to see a main effect of mate order. If there was, this would support the hypothesis that the priority pattern is determined by sperm placement, in that the first male is able to place his sperm closer to the fertilization duct and therefore fathers more offspring. I think this will work. If you see any flaws, please feel free to point them out. Also, if I follow the Rule of 10, I will need 10 trial runs or replicates. There are 16 males per replicate (two pairs for sterile, sterile; two pairs for fertile, fertile; two pairs for fertile, sterile; and two pairs for sterile;fertile). The number of intromissions will be varied among the pairs with one being 50/50 and the other 20/80. Total this means I need 160 males!!!

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