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DESIGNING EXPERIMENTS TO MAXIMIZE THE POWER OF DETECTING CORRELATIONS
Author(s) -
Phillips Patrick C.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1998.tb05158.x
Subject(s) - biology , correlation , sample size determination , variety (cybernetics) , statistics , power (physics) , evolutionary biology , econometrics , mathematics , physics , geometry , quantum mechanics
Studies investigating correlations among traits are increasingly common in evolutionary biology. By providing power calculations, minimum sample sizes, and standard errors of correlation coefficients in a variety of contexts, this note provides guidelines to insure that nonzero correlations will not be erroneously dismissed as nonsignificant in properly designed experiements. Forty individuals is often sufficient for reasonable estimation of correlation coefficients, although 100 or more individuals may be nexessary if a large number of traits are involved or comparisons are to be made among the coefficients.