In a study of diet preferences in leafcutter ants a research

In a study of diet preferences in leafcutter ants, a researcher presented 20 randomly chosen ant colonies with leaves from the two most common tree species in the surrounding forest. The leaves were placed in piles of 100, one pile for each tree species, close to colony entrances. Leaves were cut so that each was small enough to be carried by a single ant. After 24 hours, the researcher returned and counted the number of leaves remaining of the original 100 of each species. Some of the results are shown in the following table.

Solution

(a)

Variables: Tree Species, Number of leaves removed.

Explanatory variable: Tree Species, Categorical

Response variable: Number of leaves removed, Numeric

(b)

Beaucse these are leaves ant removed from the pile. Random sample has all the 20*200=4000 leaves.

(c)

Yes, it will affect. Here we should find out the proportion from all the 4000 leaves.

(d)

Number of Ant colonies can be used: count the number of colonies prefer Spondius and number of colonies prefer Sapium.