The ARRIVE guidelines,a welcome improvement to standards for reporting animal research

Here we introduce the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines, produced by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), which are published in this issue of the journal with our endorsement, and will be incorporated into our Instructions to Authors. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sunlight and water transparency: cornerstones in coral research

Reef-building corals throughout the world are considered endangered. The evidence is a decline in coral health and reduced coral cover. Competing hypotheses for the cause of coral loss include removal of grazers, nutrient enrichment, disease, coral bleaching, increase in temperature, and excess light/ultraviolet exposure. We suggest that light limitation as a second order effect of anthropogenic activity (e.g. sediment resuspension and nutrient enrichment) is a valid and tractable hypothesis. This experimental field and laboratory study demonstrates that corals of the Florida reefs are functioning close to the compensation point where respiration (of coral polyp plus zooxanthellae) consumes the products of photosynthesis of the zooxanthellae, with little if any remaining for growth. We extend this work into an optical nomograph that is useful for predicting coral loss and recovery. The nomograph is designed to elucidate compensation depth for waters of various transparencies.     

RDML: structured language and reporting guidelines for real-time quantitative PCR data

The XML-based Real-Time PCR Data Markup Language (RDML) has been developed by the RDML consortium (http://www.rdml.org) to enable straightforward exchange of qPCR data and related information between qPCR instruments and third party data analysis software, between colleagues and collaborators and between experimenters and journals or public repositories. We here also propose data related guidelines as a subset of the Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments (MIQE) to guarantee inclusion of key data information when reporting experimental results.     

Developing a set of guidelines for your research field: a practical approach

Since 2008, the autophagy community has periodically published a set of guidelines, currently titled “Guidelines for the Use and Interpretation of Assays for Monitoring Autophagy.” The newest version of the guidelines was published in 2016. There are many reasons for establishing a set of guidelines in a given research field. This Perspective explores some of these reasons, including standardizing nomenclature for better communication, improving reproducibility, and making it easier for newcomers to enter the field. It also includes the approach I have used to generate and update the guidelines that are now widely used in the autophagy field. The suggestions are not meant to be formulaic, and the method is certainly not perfect. Instead, this should be viewed as a starting set of, well, guidelines.     

Ten categories of statistical errors: a guide for research in endocrinology and metabolism

A simple framework is introduced that defines ten categories of statistical errors on the basis of type of error, bias or imprecision, and source: sampling, measurement, estimation, hypothesis testing, and reporting. Each of these ten categories is illustrated with examples pertinent to research and publication in the disciplines of endocrinology and metabolism. Some suggested remedies are discussed, where appropriate. A review of recent issues of American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism and of Endocrinology finds that very small sample sizes may be the most prevalent cause of statistical error in this literature.     

Disclosure of investigators' recruitment performance in multicenter clinical trials: a further step for research transparency

Rafael Dal-Ré and colleagues argue that the recruitment targets and performance of all site investigators in multi-centre clinical trials should be disclosed in trial registration sites before a trial starts, and when it ends.