This list of research methods in biology is an index to articles about research methodologies used in various branches of biology.
| Research design | Utility | Potential analysis | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Between-group design | Experiment that has two or more groups of subjects each being tested by a different testing factor simultaneously | Student's t-test, Analysis of variance, Mann–Whitney U test | |
| A research design that involves multiple measures of the same variable taken on the same or matched subjects either under different conditions or over two or more time periods.[1] | Paired t-test, Wilcoxon signed-rank test |
| Analysis | Utility | Branch | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Graph that shows the magnitude of the response of an organism, as a function of exposure (or doses) to a stimulus or stressor (usually a chemical) after a certain exposure time[2] | Physiology | ||
| Graph that shows voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current within the neurons of the brain[3] | Neuroscience | ||
| Graph of voltage versus time of the electrical activity of the heart[4] using electrodes placed on the skin | Physiology | ||
| Used to display data with a large number of data-points, many of non-zero amplitude, and with a distribution of higher-magnitude values. The plot is commonly used in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to display significant SNPs.[5] | Genetics | ||
| Used to show the occurrence of phenotypes of a particular gene or organism and its ancestors from one generation to the next,[6] [7] [8] most commonly humans, show dogs,[9] and race horses | Genetics | ||
| Used to show the evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities based upon similarities and differences in their physical or genetic characteristics | Systematics, Evolutionary biology | ||
| Used to illustrate the distribution of a population (typically that of a country or region of the world) by age groups and sex; it typically forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing[10] | Population ecology | ||
| Used to predict the genotypes of a particular cross or breeding experiment | Genetics |
| Analysis | Utility | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A collection of statistical models and their associated estimation procedures (such as the "variation" among and between groups) used to analyze the differences among means | Statistical model | ||
| A statistical hypothesis test that is valid to perform when the test statistic is chi-squared distributed under the null hypothesis, specifically Pearson's chi-squared test and variants thereof | Statistical hypothesis test | ||
| A statistical hypothesis test of the null hypothesis that, for randomly selected values X and Y from two populations, the probability of X being greater than Y is equal to the probability of Y being greater than X | Nonparametric statistics | ||
| Student's t-test | Parametric statistics |
| Method | Utility | Branches | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biochemistry, Molecular biology, Genetics | |||
| Biochemistry, Neuroscience, Physiology | |||
| Used to remove a biological structure or functionality | Genetics, Physiology | ||
| Used to optically measure the status of calcium ions (Ca2+) in an isolated cell, tissue or medium | Physiology | ||
| Process of separating individual living cells from a solid block of tissue or cell suspension | Cell biology | ||
| Use of centrifugal force to separate particles from a solution according to their size, shape, density, medium viscosity, and rotor speed | Cell biology, Biochemistry | ||
| Used to modify the genomes of living organisms based on a simplified version of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas9 antiviral defense system | Molecular biology | ||
| Used to automate the DNA sequencing process | Genetics, Molecular biology | ||
| Used to detect the presence of a ligand (commonly a protein) in a liquid sample using antibodies directed against the protein to be measure | Biochemistry, Molecular biology | ||
| Used to make one of an organism's genes inoperative ("knocked out" of the organism) | Molecular biology, Genetics | ||
| Used of an antibody-based method to detect a specific protein in a sample | Molecular biology, Biochemistry | ||
| Used to measure the voltage across a cell membrane | Neuroscience, Electrophysiology | ||
| Assays (tests) large amounts of biological material using high-throughput screening miniaturized, multiplexed and parallel processing and detection methods | Genetics, Molecular biology | ||
| Neuroscience | |||
| Used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye | Cell biology | ||
| Used to assemble recombinant DNA molecules and to direct their replication within host organisms.[11] | Molecular biology | ||
| Used to study gene expression by detection of RNA (or isolated mRNA) in a sample.[12] [13] | Molecular biology | ||
| Neuroscience | |||
| Used to graphically displays varying signal voltages, usually as a calibrated two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time | Neuroscience, Physiology | ||
| Used to separate coloured chemicals or substances.[14] | Molecular biology | ||
| Used to study ionic currents in individual isolated living cells, tissue sections, or patches of cell membrane | Electrophysiology, Neuroscience | ||
| Used to rapidly make millions to billions of copies (complete copies or partial copies) of a specific DNA sample, allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it (or a part of it) to a large enough amount to study in detail | Genetics, Molecular biology | ||
| Developmental biology | |||
| Used to detect specific DNA sequence in DNA samples | Molecular biology | ||
| Used to determine whether an individual is homozygous or heterozygous dominant | Genetics | ||
| Used to measure the ion currents through the membranes of excitable cells, such as neurons, while holding the membrane voltage at a set level.[15] | Physiology, Neuroscience | ||
| Used analytical technique in molecular biology and immunogenetics to detect specific proteins in a sample of tissue homogenate or extract | Molecular biology | ||
| Used to determine the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions | Structural biology |
| Method | Utility | Branches | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance sampling | Used for estimating the density and/or abundance of populations | Ecology | |
| Mark and recapture | Used to estimate an animal population's size where it is impractical to count every individual.[16] | Ecology |
| Model | Utility | Branches | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exponential integrate-and-fire | Describes compact and computationally efficient nonlinear spiking neuron models with one or two variables | Neuroscience | |
| FitzHugh–Nagumo model | Describes a prototype of an excitable system (e.g., a neuron) | Neuroscience | |
| Hardy–Weinberg principle | States that allele and genotype frequencies in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in the absence of other evolutionary influences | Genetics, Evolutionary biology | |
| Hodgkin–Huxley model | Describes how action potentials in neurons are initiated and propagated | Neuroscience | |
| Allows for the calculation of heterozygosity, or genetic diversity, in a finite population and for the estimation of genetic distances between populations of interest[17] | Evolutionary biology | ||
| Logistic growth | Describes the growth of a population as exponential, followed by a decrease in growth, and bound by a carrying capacity due to environmental pressures.[18] | Ecology | |
| Lotka–Volterra equations | Describe the dynamics of biological systems in which two species interact, one as a predator and the other as prey | Ecology | |
| Stochastic process that describes finite populations | Genetics | ||
| Species–area relationship | describes the relationship between the area of a habitat, or of part of a habitat, and the number of species found within that area | Ecology |