Friday, April 25, 2008

How does Statistics help us in Biology?

Statistics help us to better understand the situation and take steps to handle the matter.


What are the different ways of presenting statistics?


Statistics can be presented in many forms, such as Bar graphs, Dot Charts, Pie Charts, Line graphs, etc.



Bar Graph






















Dot Chart



Pie Chart





Line Chart

Examples of Statistics used to aid in the learning of biology.


Dengue in Singapore

Line Chart showing number of dengue cases from the year 2005 to 2007. As the line chart portrays, there is a sudden sharp increase in the number of dengue
infections in the year of 2005.This is the Dengue season in which the Aedes Mosquitoes
are more active.However this number of infected cases declined in the year 2006,but increased again in the year of 2007





Statistics revealed that the number of dengue-infected people in Singapore from Jan 2008 to 5th April is about 60 per cent higher than it was last year in the same period.

--Map of Singapore showing dengue hotspots.--


Shown below is a picture of dengue hot spots around singapore.From the diagram, you can see that the dengue hotspots are located in the centrallised area of singapore rather than other parts of the country.

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From the dengue charts, we can see the trend of dengue cases and the hot spots, this information helps us understand how fast mosquitoes breed and how virulent they are, judging from the number of dengue cases. This information also aids further research on dengue mosquitoes which in turn helps scientists gain a better understanding of the mosquitoes and their behaviour.



Study of organisms found in leaf litter
"The total morphotypes collected supported our hypothesis that greater diversity would be found in the primary forest than in the secondary growth site. However, due to the great variation among the different sample plots, further sampling and analysis would be required to reach a definitive conclusion.".


"Several factors may contribute to the increased diversity found in primary forest. The primary forest leaf litter arthropod community has persisted under similar conditions for many generations with continuous development and diversification of niches. Specialized relationships have evolved between flora and fauna, predators and prey. With more herbivores come more predators, and the diversity of organisms rapidly increases. The environment of the primary forest is also moderated and protected by the canopy. The temperature is moderated and more constant because direct sunlight does not reach the forest floor. The canopy also reduces the pounding and erosion effects of rainfall.".



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This study of organisms in leaf litter is presented to us in this bar chart. It is useful for those who want to find out the average number of organisms or types of organisms in a particular leaf litter, therefore leading to better understanding of the organisms in the leaf litter.



Cancer incidence statistics on non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in adults


As you can infer from the chart, the occurance of cases for non-Hodgkin lymphoma in adults are often diagnosed at the age of, 55-79 for amles, and 70-84 for females.The disease is also more prominent in males rather than females




This cancer statistics gives the scientists information on how many people are affected by NHL. This data gives them more knowledge on the current situation and also aids them in their research, and thus helps them to have a better understanding of the cancer.

It also warns us to be careful and take preventive measure to avoid contracting the disease.

Below is a video that we have created to show how statistics can be applied to us students, in helping us understand biology better. =)

We strongly advice you to buffer the video completely first before viewing so as to ensure smooth viewing.



Conclusion:

Thanks to statistics,we are able to better understand biology and interpret information from multiple different sources,and thus will assist scicentists/reasearchers in advances in biology and also improve the perfomance of students like us in understandinging biology better.

posted at 7:08 PM

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