Biometrician

Imagine you are in a large boardroom listening intently as an evergreen pest problem is outlined. You are a biometrician; joining you around the table is an entomologist, an ecotoxicologist, and a couple of chemists. You are part of a team that will be testing a new insecticide developed to control pest populations that are damaging some of Manitoba's evergreen forests. As a biometrician, you specialize in number crunching, which means you play a vital role in developing experimental protocols.

As a member of this evaluation team, you will be responsible for designing the part of the experiment that details the kind of data that will be collected, how it will be collected, and how this data will be analyzed. You approach this experiment from a mathematical perspective using statistical analysis to answer the question: does this insecticide really work? As a team, your group has put together the experiment's design, including the variables, parameters, trial size, and replication. Now you start to work on the quantitative methodology that will actually measure the effect this insecticide has on pest populations. First, you must decide what data is to be collected, for example, the number of living insects as a function of time.

With insect populations, though, it isn't practical to count every single one, so you must also develop a suitable method for collecting that data. Once this is done, you will also design and build a database to capture and store the data. Finally, you will use statistical theory and sophisticated modelling software to analyze and identify trends within the collected data. Your job is to mathematically interpret, extrapolate, and explain the effects this spray has had on the numbers of pests plaguing the evergreen trees.