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Shara
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had to divide data into days, which stats test to use

Would someone be able to give me advice on which stats test to use and why if you have time?

I have data on the distance an animal walks (per day) against the number of animals in a paddock.

[The distances are not independent (i.e how far one animal walks very significantly affects how far all the others walk as they usually live in herds) therefore, although I have the original data I'm fairly sure that I cannot use per/animal results, I think I need to take the average over all the animals in the paddock.]

There were 3 trials,

In the first one there were two control groups, 30 animals in two separate paddocks. This was repeated 3 days in a row. The distance each animal walked was recorded.

In the second trial there was one control group (30 animals in the paddock) and one treatment (20 animals in another paddock). This was repeated 3 days in a row.

In the third trial there was one control group (30 animals in one paddock) and one treatment (10 animals in another paddock). This was repeated 3 days in a row.

We were measuring using GPS which was not 100% reliable, therefore I don't have results for all animals on all days. This means I also can't just take results over the entire 3 days non-stop, as there were some treatments where only 2 collars worked for the entire time. I need to divide the results into separate days as some collars worked on some days and some collars on other days, (that way I can have, for example, 4 results per day, rather than just use the two collars that worked for the entire time. Using just 2 results could cause bias as some collars record slightly higher results than others and some animals walk further than others).

Should I use ANOVA? Any help greatly appreciated!

Thanks very much!!!

S

Shara
  • 49
  • 6