Q2. Do Wolves Reduce Animal-Vehicle Collisions? In December 222, the UN will convene its 15th Conference of the Parties on Biodiversity. The discussions will focus on the trends in biodiversity losses, their impacts, and the methods to slow and reverse those changes. One particular intervention that has been seeing growing adoption has been reintroducticns of previously locally extinct species. Formally, this is referred to as \"reintroduction biology\" but you might see it discussed in policy circles using the term \"rewilding.'1 2 One example you covered in the TA sessions focused on allowing the gray wolf to recover in the United States, and the potential impact that might have on animalvehicle collisions. The potential mechanism that links gray wolves with animal vehicle collisions is known as \"trophic cascades," which means that the impacts that one species has can propagate throughout the ecosystem. In short, wolves prey on deer and other unglates, but perhaps more importantly, they change their behavior and make them move away from the forest edge where roads are located (this is often referred to as the \"ecology of fear\"). In the TA session, you used data on animalvehicle collisions from the state of 1L'ifashington, and did not find much evidence of there being an effect. Ilere we will explore data from Quebec, Canada, and 'Wisconsin, USA. 1. In Quebec, there are gray wolves north of the Saint Lawrence River, but not south of the river {where they were eradicated many years ago}. A team of researchers collected data on 2D years of vehicle collisions in municipalities north and south of the river. For the municipalities that are within 5|] km of the river, the researchers calculated and reported the following sample means for the rate of animalvehicle collisions perLUBE} people {defmed as the number of vehicle collisions labeled as animal-related, divided by the population of the municipality, and multiplied by l,):3 jiggm}, = 3.31, )3th = 1.48. Based only on the difference in sample means, is there enough information to conclude there is a meaningful difference in the rate of animalvehicle collisions between the municipalities north and south of the river? Briey explain {12 sentences). [lpt] 2. The research team provides you with the following estimates for the variance in each sample, and the number of municipalities in each sample (the sample size): South = 12.86, nsouth = 421, sNorth = 5.43, nNorth = 250. "See for example these two news articles about rewilding: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/19/rewilding- europe-project-spain-lynx-wild-horses-black-vultures-in-eastern-spain-ace and https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/s and-brown-bears-among-wildlife-make-exciting-comeback-in-europe-ave. We are using data derived from administrative records in Quebec. In other words, we are not just making up numbers for the sake of the question here - you are using real data! The data are from Canada, so we are using distance in kilometers and not miles. Metric system FTW! You should assume that these data are a random sample drawn from the population. Using this information, formally conduct a two-sided hypothesis test that there is no difference between the animal-vehicle collision rate north and south of the river. [3pts]