Symbioses can range from mutualisms to parasitisms; the latter are the foci of this exercise. The way in which parasites are distributed among hosts (their dispersion) can have profound importance for how they and their hosts coevolve, and for many other facets of their biology. Accordingly, many researchers, including ecologists and medical practitioners, study dispersion of parasites in detail. Fungi are commonly observed parasites on leaves of trees. I describe one way to randomly sample leaves to quantify dispersion of such parasites and test whether dispersion is related to a variety of explanatory variables. Significant quantities of data can be generated in relatively short order and pooled for a class; many patterns can emerge that challenge students to find logical interpretations. Relatively sophisticated students could test whether parasites have a random dispersion pattern by comparing the histogram they generate to that of a Poisson distribution. Data can be analyzed in a simple fashion or via advanced mixed models.
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January 2019
