Mongolian desert ants. Refer to the Journal of Biogeography (Dec. 2003) study of ants in Mongolia (central Asia), presented in Exercise 2.68 (p. 91). Recall that botanists placed seed baits at 5 sites in the Dry Steppe region and 6 sites in the Gobi Desert and observed the number of ant species attracted to each site. These data are listed in the next table. LO3

a. Is there evidence to conclude that a difference exists between the average number of ant species found at sites in the two regions of Mongolia? Draw the appropriate conclusion, using a = .05.

b. Conduct a test of equal variances at the two regions, using a = .05. Interpret the result.

Site Region Number of Ant Species 1 Dry Steppe 3 2 Dry Steppe 3 3 Dry Steppe 52 4 Dry Steppe 7 5 Dry Steppe 5 6 Gobi Desert 49 7 Gobi Desert 5 8 Gobi Desert 4 9 Gobi Desert 4 10 Gobi Desert 5 11 Gobi Desert 4