BIOL 499 Project on adaptive plasticity in sea urchins

During this semester Dr. Muir and I worked on a data set revolving around the Tripneutes gratilla (the collector urchin) and how food availability and temperature impacts their plasticity. We would meet every week reviewing code, discussing alternate code and possible avenues for analysis of the data. The preliminary data we were focusing on only explored the impacts of food availability on growth. Using R we homogenized and combined preliminary data and then performed ANCOVA tests to determine whether the preliminary data supported the notion that the variables impact their growth in the post oral arms, main body, and stomach in different manners. Moving forward we will continue with a larger data set which will explore both temperature and food treatment on these urchins’ growth.

Note from Chris Muir: Lily an undergraduate at University of Hawaiʻi who took my BIOL 220: Biostatistics class and wanted to get more hands-on experience with data science and statistics. This was a collaboration with Amy Moran’s lab.