gcb-study-design
Use when designing the study behind a Global Change Biology (GCB) manuscript — manipulative experiments, observational/gradient studies, or process modelling of biological responses to global change. GCB reviewers probe scale, replication, realism, and causal inference. Guides design choices; it does not collect or simulate data.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill gcb-study-design --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Study Design (gcb-study-design) GCB reviewers are experts in **ecology, biogeochemistry, and ecosystem/Earth-system modelling**. They will probe whether the design can actually support a **driver → biological-response** claim at the stated scale. This skill covers design choices and their tradeoffs; analysis lives in `gcb-data-analysis`. ## When to trigger - Designing a warming / eCO2 / drought / N-addition experiment or a gradient/observational study - Setting up a process-model or species-distribution-model experiment (Technical Advance or analysis) - Justifying scale, replication, controls, and the realism of the manipulation - A reviewer questioned confounding, pseudoreplication, or extrapolation ## Design families and what GCB expects 1. **Manipulative experiments** (OTC/infrared warming, FACE/eCO2, rainfall manipulation, N addition, reciprocal transplants). Report **dose, duration, replication, and the realism gap** versus real-world change; avoid **pseudoreplication** (treatment confounded with plot/chamber). 2. **Observational / gradient & long-term studies** (space-for-time, latitudinal/elevational gradients, LTER/NEON time series). State **confounders** and the limits o
- When to trigger
- Design families and what GCB expects
- Cross-cutting design principles
- Design-weakness diagnostic
- Worked micro-example (illustrative)
- Referee pushback patterns and the design fix
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Supplementary resources
What does the gcb-study-design skill do?
Use when designing the study behind a Global Change Biology (GCB) manuscript — manipulative experiments, observational/gradient studies, or process modelling of biological responses to global change. GCB reviewers probe scale, replication, realism, and causal inference. Guides design choices; it does not collect or simulate data.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill gcb-study-design --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.