84 Snow geese feeding trial. Botanists at the University of Toronto conducted a series of experiments to
Question:
84 Snow geese feeding trial. Botanists at the University of Toronto conducted a series of experiments to investigate the feeding habits of baby snow geese ( Journal of Applied Ecology , Vol. 32, 1995). Goslings were deprived of food until their guts were empty and then were allowed to feed for 6 hours on a diet of plants or Purina ® Duck Chow ® . For each feeding trial, the change in the weight of the gosling after 2.5 hours was recorded as a percentage of the bird’s initial weight. Two other variables recorded were digestion efficiency (measured as a percentage) and amount of acid-detergent fiber in the digestive tract (also measured as a percentage). Data on 42 feeding trials are saved in the SNOWGEESE file. The first and last 5 observations are listed in the table below.
a. The botanists were interested in the correlation between weight change ( y ) and digestion efficiency ( x ). Plot the data for these two variables in a scatterplot. Do you observe a trend?
b. Find the coefficient of correlation relating weight change y to digestion efficiency x . Interpret this value.
c. Conduct a test to determine whether weight change y is correlated with digestion efficiency x . Use a = .01.
d. Repeat parts b and c , but exclude the data for trials that used duck chow. What do you conclude?
e. The botanists were also interested in the correlation between digestion efficiency y and acid-detergent fibe x . Repeat parts a – d for these two variables.
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