Statistical Analysis of Lake Sturgeon Data to Find Association and Correlation

Student Author(s)

Kellen Gove
Zachary Terpstra

Faculty Mentor(s)

Dr. Paul Pearson and Dr. Yew-Meng Koh

Document Type

Poster

Event Date

4-15-2016

Abstract

The lake sturgeon is an ancient species of fish native to the Great Lakes Region. They were considered a nuisance fish by fishermen beginning in the 1800s and were treated as such. This led to a rapid decline in the species, which eventually placed them on the U.S. Endangered Species list. Efforts have been made to restore the population and have been showing signs of payoff. In order to better understand what exactly is happening with these fish, data has been collected over a wide range of aspects about lake sturgeon. Using data collected by the Black Lake Streamside Research Facility in 2011, this project’s goal was to analyze the data in an effort to find any correlation between two relationships. These relationships were between incubation temperature and adult length and body area, as well as the relationship between yolk sac area and adult length and body area. Using Hope College’s Statistical Applets, we performed a statistical test of multiple means, as well as a theory-based test of multiple means. The tests concluded that a higher incubation temperature of sturgeon eggs does not influence body length or body area of an adult sturgeon, and the correlation between yolk sac area, body length, and body area was extremely weak.

Comments

This research was supported by the Day1 Program through a grant from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation.

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