Loaiza Velásquez Natalia, González Lutz María Isabel, Monge-Nájera Julián
Biología Tropical, Universidad de Costa Rica, 2060 San José, Costa Rica.
Rev Biol Trop. 2011 Sep;59(3):983-92.
Tropical biologists study the richest and most endangered biodiversity in the planet, and in these times of climate change and mega-extinctions, the need for efficient, good quality research is more pressing than in the past. However, the statistical component in research published by tropical authors sometimes suffers from poor quality in data collection; mediocre or bad experimental design and a rigid and outdated view of data analysis. To suggest improvements in their statistical education, we listed all the statistical tests and other quantitative analyses used in two leading tropical journals, the Revista de Biología Tropical and Biotropica, during a year. The 12 most frequent tests in the articles were: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Chi-Square Test, Student's T Test, Linear Regression, Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal-Wallis Test, Shannon's Diversity Index, Tukey's Test, Cluster Analysis, Spearman's Rank Correlation Test and Principal Component Analysis. We conclude that statistical education for tropical biologists must abandon the old syllabus based on the mathematical side of statistics and concentrate on the correct selection of these and other procedures and tests, on their biological interpretation and on the use of reliable and friendly freeware. We think that their time will be better spent understanding and protecting tropical ecosystems than trying to learn the mathematical foundations of statistics: in most cases, a well designed one-semester course should be enough for their basic requirements.
热带生物学家研究地球上最丰富且最濒危的生物多样性，在当前气候变化和大规模物种灭绝的时代，开展高效、高质量研究的需求比以往任何时候都更加迫切。然而，热带地区作者发表的研究中的统计学部分有时存在数据收集质量差、实验设计平庸或糟糕以及数据分析观念僵化和过时等问题。为了提出改进其统计学教育的建议，我们列出了一年中两份主要热带期刊《热带生物学杂志》和《生物热带学》中使用的所有统计检验及其他定量分析方法。文章中最常用的12种检验方法为：方差分析（ANOVA）、卡方检验、学生t检验、线性回归、皮尔逊相关系数、曼-惠特尼U检验、克鲁斯卡尔-沃利斯检验、香农多样性指数、图基检验、聚类分析、斯皮尔曼等级相关检验和主成分分析。我们得出结论，热带生物学家的统计学教育必须摒弃基于统计学数学方面的旧教学大纲，而应专注于正确选择这些及其他程序和检验方法、对其进行生物学解释以及使用可靠且易用的免费软件。我们认为，他们将时间花在理解和保护热带生态系统上会比试图学习统计学的数学基础更有价值：在大多数情况下，精心设计的一个学期课程应足以满足他们的基本需求。
