Re: DNA and pollen viability in hosta
- Subject: Re: DNA and pollen viability in hosta
- From: h*@open.org
- Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 19:38:14 -0800 (PST)
Ben:
>Therefore most standard deviations from the species are around 0.2%
>as published.
How do you get a standard deviation based as a percentage? A standard
devistion is just a measure of the variation of the mean around the
mean and is expressed in the same units as are used in the data.
If you have a 0.2% error and hosta generally average about 30 pg DNA,
that gives a standard deviation of 0.6 pg and a 95% confidence level
of +/- 1.2 pg. I believe you said most hosta are between 28 and 32 pg
DNA. A hosta measured at 28 pg could be 29.2 pg while a hosta with 30
pg could be 28.8. Your error rate is such that you need at least a
2.4 pg difference bvetween any two hostas before you can consider them
to be significently different. Given that most hosta vary only
between 28 and 32 pg, I don't see how the DNA data can be of any great
value by itself. At best all you can do is seperate the hosta species
into maybe three DNA groups: low, medium and high DNA levels.
This isn't to say the DNA content isn't valuable information, but it
is only valuable when combined with other information.
Joe Halinar
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