Hi,

I'm writing up a scientific report about my experiment which was about what foods snails liked. We had 4 food types: spinach, lettuce, eucalyptus leaves and basket grass. The first two are non-native plants and the second two are native. We're basically testing whether they like native or non-native foods. I have calculated the mean difference of each food type eaten (by subtracting the mean eaten from the experimental group with the mean eaten in the control group). I have also got their 95% confidence intervals. But I don't know how to interpret them.

For example, for spinach, the mean eaten was -0.70g (and standard deviation was +/- 0.55g) and the 95% confidence interval for spinach was found to be -1.27g and -0.12g. So in my results section, is this correct:

"The mean amount of spinach eaten was -0.70 +/- 0.55g. There is 95% confidence in the data that the mean spinach leaves eaten was between -1.27g and -0.12g. The mean value of -70g sits in this confidence interval so this result is statistically significant."

Also, for some food types, the standard deviation number was larger than the mean so the standard deviation error bars span more than the entire bar. I have attached a photo of this. Is this ok?

Non-native food Native food 3 2 0 -1 -2 Amount consumed (grams) -3 -4 -5 -6 -8 Spinach Lettuce Eucalyptus leaves Basket grass Food type