4.5 Magellanic penguins. Example 3.6 (page 73) described a study of Magellanic penguins’ breeding. Figure 3.3 (page 73) shows the relationship between starvation and fledging in the Punta Tombo colony for the 28 years between 1983 and 2010. There are two outliers on this scatterplot, which the researchers excluded from their analysis because of those years’ highly unusual climatic conditions. Here is a quote from the publication: “Starvation strongly affected reproductive success. When a higher percentage of chicks starved, a lower percentage fledged (R2=0.70 excluding 1991 and 1999).”

a. Interpret the quoted value 0.70 in the context of this study.

b. What is the value of the correlation between percent of chicks starved and percent of chicks fledged?