RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Proper experimental design requires randomization/balancing of molecular ecology experiments
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 109280
DO 10.1101/109280
A1 Miklós Bálint
A1 Orsolya Márton
A1 Marlene Schatz
A1 Rolf-Alexander Düring
A1 Hans-Peter Grossart
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/17/109280.abstract
AB 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.