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Systematic variation improves reproducibility of animal experiments

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Figure 1: Effect of standardization and heterogenization on between-experiment variation.
Figure 2: Heterogenization improves reproducibility by increasing within-experiment variation as shown in the path length in a free exploration test.

References

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioural Biology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    S Helene Richter

  2. Animal Welfare and Ethology, University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    S Helene Richter & Hanno Würbel

  3. Animal Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

    Joseph P Garner

  4. Mathematical Statistics and Applications in Nature Sciences, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany

    Corinna Auer & Joachim Kunert

Authors
  1. S Helene Richter
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  2. Joseph P Garner
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  3. Corinna Auer
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  4. Joachim Kunert
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  5. Hanno Würbel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hanno Würbel.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–4, Supplementary Methods (PDF 447 kb)

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Richter, S., Garner, J., Auer, C. et al. Systematic variation improves reproducibility of animal experiments. Nat Methods 7, 167–168 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth0310-167

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