Environmental Data Analysis - Midterm Project Timothy Bonebrake (DUE APRIL 10 2024) Science runs by peer review. You do a study, submit it to a journal and pray reviewers like your study and find nothing wrong with it. Then you pray that the editor feels the same way and accepts the paper. Then your study is picked up by the news and your analysis is then celebrated worldwide. Or it gets rejected and you cry. In any case, as a peer, you will also review other studies yourself. So, let's say the following paper lands in your inbox: Reavis, J. L., Rojas-Caizales, D., Mejas-Balsalobre, C., Naranjo, I., Arauz, R., & Senko, J. F. (2022). Dynamics of human take and animal predation on sea turtle nests in Northwest Costa Rica. PeerJ, 10, e12925. Of course, this paper has already been published. But, before it was published, the paper went through some kind of peer review process. The Editor received it and sent this to three reviewers initially before being revised twice by the authors before acceptance. But that doesn't mean any of them were right to accept the paper! The paper itself and data files (which are also on the journal website) are provided on Moodle. Your job is to evaluate the statistics and results of the paper. Specifically, can you recreate the results of the paper and do you think their approach is valid? Do you think their conclusions are justified given their results? Do you think there is an alternative way to analyze the results? If you do think there is an alternative way to analyse the results, then please do so (if you are able to). The data for all results in the paper are available and we have (or will very soon) covered all of the analysis approaches described. As such, you should be able to recreate the results but you might not be able to depending on how well the authors presented their data and results. A common question received during the midterm is "I can't generate the author's results like they did. How can I tell whether it's because I don't understand the methods well enough or if it's because the author left something out or did something incorrectly?" This is an excellent question and gets at the heart of the midterm. I can't tell you the direct answer to this question - but feel free to email the course gmail account if you run into this. We might be able to give hints if you're really struggling. Truthfully though, this is a fundamental challenge in science that we all have to grapple with, even if we've been reviewing papers for decades. Specific Guidelines The review should generally follow the guidelines of the Lab Reports but this should be FOUR pages instead two (plus three pages for figures/ references). Each review should contain: 1.) Introduction (general context of the study), 2.) Methods (what the authors did and what you did), 3.) Results and Discussion (validity of the authors' results and conclusions based on your own) and 4.) Conclusion/ Recommendation (do you think the paper should be published?). An additional three pages for references, figures or tables are acceptable (but no more than 3) though not required. Also, print the output or script file (from Rstudio) for your analysis - in other words, show your work so I can see how you inputted or implemented your analysis. Submit the paper on Moodle as with lab reports.