Catch and Release lab Collaborators: Rudy Lindsey Connor Abstract: The main idea of this lab was

to figure out what a population size is through estimates and to know what types of samples to use to figure out what works best to find a good estimate of the population. The lab started with replacing a certain number of beads either 10 20 or 30 with a different color or a tagged group to represent the tagged fish in a population. Then shake up the bag and take out a sample of beads and record the size of the sample and how many tagged fish are in the sample repeat this either 10, 15 or 20 times depending on instruction. Then figure out an estimated population size and compare it to the actual population size and write down the percent error. Having 10 fish tagged and pulling out 20 samples provided the least percent error of 1.5% showing that a low number of tagged fish with many samples can provide the best estimate. Problem: How much tagging should be used and how big should the sample size be to provide an accurate estimate on a population? Hypothesis: If there are many samples along with few tagged fish then you will get the best estimate on a population because the more samples that are taken the closer to the population the date will be and the few tagged fish will allow less of a chance of there being a bias or a large variance. Parts of the Experiment: Control- The full population size Independent Variable- Number of tagged fish in the population and Number of samples taken Dependent Variable- Estimated population size Materials: 1. Paper bag 2. A large amount of 2 different colors of beads Procedure: 1. Place one color of beads in a paper bag 2. Replace 10, 20 or 30 beads with the 2nd color of beads and they are the now tagged beads 3. Pull out a handful of beads and record the number of tagged beads and the sample size 4. Continue to draw out 10, 15 or 20 samples. 5. Find the estimated population by dividing the number of tagged beads by the mean of the sample percentages 6. Find the actual population of beads in the bag and calculate the percent error 7. Compare to the rest of the class

Data: Number Of Tagged 20 30 30 20 10 30 30 10 20 10 30 20 20 30

Number of Catches 10 10 15 10 20 15 10 10 20 15 10 15 15 20

Percent Error 8.50% 13.10% 9% 7.40% 1.50% 70% 18.60% 22% 26.40% 25% 87.34% 10.10% 10% 21.90%

Data Analysis: The data shows that if many beads are tagged and not many samples are taken then you will not get the best estimate of a population where as if you tag fewer beads and take many samples you will find a very close estimate of the population. Conclusion: The best way to estimate a population of fish is to tag few beads with many samples taken. By taking many samples there is a better sampling distribution shown which is a better demonstration of what the population is this is a statistical fact and with fewer tagged beads there is a rarer chance of catching it again and again or having a huge group being caught one time and a small group the next allowing for less variance in the data. The catch and release method will show how many fish are actually reappearing in the samples showing how they have a proportion to the actual population when it is known how many are tagged. Cited Source: Schnabel, Zoe Emily. JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2013.