title: Statistical comparison of the results from six analytical chemistry laboratories of the mercury content of muscle tissue of two species of sharks.
abstract: Statistical tests were carried out on the results of chemical analysis for total mercury concentrations of replicate samples of muscle tissue of school shark Galeorhinus australis (Macleay) and gummy shark Mustelus antarcticus Guenther from six independent analytical laboratories. These tests showed that one laboratory produced results 9% below the overall average of all results, another 1% below average while the other four were all 5% above average. Moreover, one laboratory had significantly lower scatter of results than the others, and the percentage scatter (standard error expressed as a percentage of the mean) in two of the laboratories tended to diminish as the magnitude of the results increased. Correction for what were concluded to be wild points indicated that the scatter for all laboratories was below 14%.
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D008628:Mercury / Q000032:analysis*; D008722:Methods; D009132:Muscles / Q000032:analysis*; D012754:Sharks / Q000378:metabolism*; D013054:Spectrophotometry, Atomic
chemical_list: D008628:Mercury