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Biomedical subjects

M K Tourtellot

Publications and source records attributed to M K Tourtellot.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

The genetic analysis of family structured inbreeding depression studies.

An important question emerging from theoretical studies of mating system evolution is whether the fitness of a randomly extracted, fully inbred genotype will exceed the mean of outbred individuals. We introduce two statistics (I(1) and I(2)) related to the probability of extracting a high line. I(1) and I(2) can be estimated from the family structured experimental designs typically used to estimate inbreeding depression (ID). Maximum likelihood procedures are developed from an explicit genetic model. These yield parameter estimates and provide the likelihoods necessary to test hypotheses, for example, whether population-level ID is nonzero. Finally, we describe a new publicly available computer program titled 'IDG' (Inbreeding Depression Genetics) to execute these procedures.

Analysis of Variance↗

Defining stops in search pathways.

The alternation of stationary periods and periods of movement may be an important feature of an animal's search tactic. Unambiguously differentiating stops and moves may be difficult, especially from highly resolved digitized pathways, but their identification may be essential for understanding an animal's searching behavior. In this paper, we describe a method for defining stops in search pathways. A computer program that identifies the stop-and-go movement patterns from digitized pathway data is available upon request from the authors.

Animals↗

The problem of movelength and turn definition in analysis of orientation data.

This study examines the analysis of arthropod orientation data. Three problems are discussed: (1) dealing with time as it applies to spatial data, (2) determining the appropriate movelength to be used in collecting and in analyzing data, and (3) defining a turn, to discriminate between "gait noise" and course changes. The main objective is to determine the solution to defining the most appropriate movelength for comparisons between variables and between species. The technique described here for selecting the appropriate movelength that has relevance to both the locomotory rate of the animal and its body length, reduces variation resulting from lateral translational movements, prevents the use of movelengths that lead to artifactual or unrealistic turning values per move, and permits comparisons of species and individuals under various stimulus conditions.

Animals↗