The paper “Feeding Ecology of the Great Basin Rattlesnake” (Canadian Journal of Zoology [2008]:

723–734) investigated whether there was a relationship between the size of a rattlesnake and the size of the unsuspecting rodent the snake would hunt. The authors collected data on x snake body mass (in grams) and prey body mass (in grams) for 22 snakes and their prey.

Because the relationship between snake mass and prey mass was not linear, the authors transformed both x and y by taking natural logarithms. The transformed data was used to construct the following scatterplot, which shows a linear pattern. If a scatterplot had been constructed using the untransformed data, which of the four curved segments in Figure 5.38 do you think it would most resemble?

Explain your choice.

Transcribed Image Text:

In(prey mass) 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 3 4 5 In(snake mass) 6 7