BIOL 1002: Principles of Biology 1002

Jake Prosser, Yolanda Wiersma, Amy Hurford

1 Before coming to the labs

Overview: In these two computer labs, we will be building on the R skills you learned in BIOL 1001. We will be focusing on manipulating and organizing data in tables, and learn a useful package called dplyr (pronounced “d-plier”)

Install:

• R and RStudio (if you have not already).

Read:

• Introduction to R - Workflow

• Introduction to R - Working directory

• Entering and loading data - Loading or importing data

• Entering and loading data - Inspecting the data

• Best practices

• Handling data

Remember! The Quantitative Skills for Biology manual you used in BIOL 1001 is still online (and updated regularly). If you need to review how to install and use R, please the manual! You can access it here: https://ahurford.github.io/quant-guide-all-courses/.

When using R, you have many ways to get help.

In addition, these labs are based on Week 3: Data in Tables (PART I) and Week 4: Grouping & Joining Data (PART II) of the online course Data Carpentry for Biologists by Dr. Ethan White. If you are not sure how to execute a particular command, you can refer to the Lecture material on Dr. White’s website and/or his instructional videos that go with the relevant lessons. The example data in the lecture material and videos is different from the data you use in the exercise.

After these labs you should be able to:

• install packages and load data,
• understand the data manipulation functions of dplyr,
• and execute a simple import and data filter scenario

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