Module 4 - investigating diversity

Question 1

What is variation?

Answer 1

Different species vary due to different genes but same species also vary due to different alleles.
It can also be causes by differences within the environment

Question 2

What must be taken into account when sampling a population of species?

Answer 2

• Non-biased so random which can be done by dividing fields into sections of random generators
• Analysing results statistically

Question 3

How to calculate the mean?

Answer 3

mean = total of all values/the number of values

Question 4

What does standard deviation tell you?

Answer 4

Tells you how much values in a sample vary as it measures the spread of values about the mean

Question 5

How do you interpret standard deviation?

Answer 5

The smaller the standard deviation i.e. 9 ± 1 means that values vary between 8 and 10 whereas a standard deviation of 9 ± 6 means values vary between 3 and 15

Question 6

How can the mean be interpreted when looking at error bars?

Answer 6

The larger the error bar the more spread out the values are. The mean is in the centre of the error bras of each sample