Mongolian desert ants. Refer to the Journal of Biogeography (Dec. 2003) study of ants in M...

Mongolian desert ants. Refer to the Journal of Biogeography (Dec. 2003) study of ants in Mongolia, presented in Exercise.

Mongolian desert ants. Refer to the Journal of Biogeography (Dec. 2003) study of ants in Mongolia, presented in Exercise. Data on annual rainfall, maximum daily temperature, and number of ant species recorded at each of 11 study sites are listed in the table and saved in the GOBIANTS file

Based on Pfeiffer, M., et al. “Community organization and species richness of ants in Mongolia along an ecological gradient from steppe to Gobi desert.” Journal of Biogeography, Vol. 30, No. 12, Dec. 2003

a. Consider a straight-line model relating annual rainfall ( y ) and maximum daily temperature ( x ). A MINITAB printout of the simple linear regression is shown below. Give the least squares prediction equation.

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b. Construct a scatterplot for the analysis you performed in part a. Include the least square line on the plot. Does the line appear to be a good predictor of annual rainfall?

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c. Now consider a straight-line model relating number of ant species ( y ) to annual rainfall ( x ). On the basis of the MINITAB printout below. repeat parts a and b.

Data on annual rainfall, maximum daily temperature, and number of ant species recorded at each of 11 study sites are reproduced in the table below and saved in the GOBIANTS file.

a. Consider the data for the five sites in the Dry Steppe region only. Rank the five annual rainfall amounts. Then rank the five maximum daily temperature values.

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b. Use the ranks from part a to find and interpret the rank correlation between annual rainfall ( y ) and maximum daily temperature ( x ).

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c. Repeat parts a and b for the six sites in the Gobi Desert region.

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d. Now consider the rank correlation between the number of ant species ( y ) and annual rainfall ( x ). Using all the data, compute and interpret Spearman’s rank correlation statistic.