How many cells should we count?

These data were gathered in an effort to solve a problem with correlating microscopic cell counts and fluorescence measurements taken during the summer of 2001 from an oyster (Crassostrea virginica) grazing experiment reported in Thessen, A.E., Q. Dortch, T.M. Soniat and G.J. Doucette (2009) Crassostrea virginica grazing on toxic and non-toxic diatoms. Toxicon.doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2009.10.011. The cells in question are the diatom Pseudo-nitzschia. We wanted to answer the question, "Are we counting enough fields and cells to be representative of the sample?" We pulled several slides (slide # 707, 721, 723, 708) from the experiment of varying cell concentration and species, initially counted at different magnifications. We calculated mean and standard deviation for each field until the two values seemed to stabilize.

本数据集的采集初衷为解决一项关联分析难题：对2001年夏季开展的美洲牡蛎（Crassostrea virginica）摄食实验中的显微细胞计数与荧光测量结果进行关联校准。该实验的相关研究成果已发表于Thessen, A.E.、Q. Dortch、T.M. Soniat与G.J. Doucette（2009）发表于《Toxicon》的论文《Crassostrea virginica grazing on toxic and non-toxic diatoms》，DOI: 10.1016/j.toxicon.2009.10.011。本次研究的目标细胞为硅藻门拟菱形藻（Pseudo-nitzschia）。我们旨在解答如下科学问题："我们所计数的视野数量与细胞数量是否足以代表该样本的整体特征？"我们从该实验中选取了4份载玻片（编号分别为707、721、723、708），这些载玻片对应不同的细胞浓度与物种组成，且最初采用不同放大倍数开展细胞计数。我们针对每个视野的计数结果逐次计算均值与标准差，直至两项统计量的数值趋于稳定。