ArticleEcology and evolution2018
Proper experimental design requires randomization/balancing of molecular ecology experiments.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Niche Differentiation and Predicted Functions of Microbiomes in a Tri-Trophic Willow-Gall (Insects · 2025Article
- Article
- Have the cake and eat it: Optimizing nondestructive DNA metabarcoding of macroinvertebrate samples for freshwater biomonitoring.Molecular ecology resources · 2019Article
- Evidence that nonsignificant results are sometimes preferred: Reverse P-hacking or selective reporting?PLoS biology · 2019Article
- Proper experimental design requires randomization/balancing of molecular ecology experiments.Ecology and evolution · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Properly designed (randomized and/or balanced) experiments are standard in ecological research. Molecular methods are increasingly used in ecology, but studies generally do not report the detailed design of sample processing in the laboratory. This may strongly influence the interpretability of results if the laboratory procedures do not account for the confounding effects of unexpected laboratory events. We demonstrate this with a simple experiment where unexpected differences in laboratory processing of samples would have biased results if randomization in DNA extraction and PCR steps do not provide safeguards. We emphasize the need for proper experimental design and reporting of the laboratory phase of molecular ecology research to ensure the reliability and interpretability of results.
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