BIOL208 Study Guide - Final Guide: Carbon Cycle, Sympatry, Density Estimation
Document Summary
Adequacy of sampling: number and size of samples => accuracy and precision of the estimates, the larger the sampling size, the more likely it is to be adequate, a large number of small or medium sized samples > a small number of large size samples, simple, homogeneous area will require less sampling than a complex, heterogeneous one. Two step sampling: take an initial sample with a small sampling size, and based on how variable this initial sample is, calculate how many more samples will be needed to achieve a certain level of statistical reliability, based on confidence interval concept, use infinite number of degrees of freedom, for a given sd, an increase in sample size n will decrease the size of the confidence interval, level of precision to be achieved will depend on the problem, the variability of the problem, and the cost of sampling.