Name: Litia Talahiva Kupu ID: S11204018 Campus: Laucala Campus

BI206 QUANTITATIVE BIOLOGY

Practical Assignment 1
Question 1: Using the dataset titled “Fish surveys” in the Week 5 lab folder on Moodle, you
will examine whether there are differences in the results of fish surveys conducted at Namena
fish reserve in the two years 2012 and 2013.
a) What is the null hypothesis? Use shorthand/notations not sentence format. [½]
H0: μ ( Fish surveys at Namena ) 2012=μ ( Fish surveys at Namena ) 2013

b) What is the alternative hypothesis? Use shorthand/notations not sentence format. [½]
HA: μ ( Fish surveys at Namena ) 2012 ≠ μ ( Fish surveys at Namena ) 2013

c) What is the response variable? [1]

 Response variable would be the fish abundance/biomass or diversity at
Namena fish reserve in 2012 and 2013.

d) What is the explanatory variable? [1]

 Size of the Namena fish reserve where the fish surveys was conducted,
pollution such as littering plastics, oil spills etc.

e) Provide a well-labeled and neat looking histogram for the 2013 Namena survey data.
[2]
Name: Litia Talahiva Kupu ID: S11204018 Campus: Laucala Campus

Full R Code: hist(Yr2Namena, col="orange", xlab="Fish Biomass(kg/ha)",

ylab="Frequency", main="Histogram of Fish Biomass in Namena 2013",font.main=3)

f) What does this plot show about the sample ‘central tendency’? [1]
 It shows that the plot is positively skewed.

g) Using the correct R code determine the variance and mean values for the two samples? [2]
 Namena Fish reserve
Year Variance Mean values
2012 137558.3 1631.917
2013 282946.9 1879.273

h) Which main statistical test should you use to test the null hypothesis listed in (a)? You must
include the answers to the assumption checks as well as all supporting R code and output in
order to get any marks. .[2]

 Number of samples: 2 samples (Yr1Namena and Yr2Namena)

Are the variables compared paired: Yes. They are paired.
Since the variables are paired, therefore statistical test used was the paired t-test.
Name: Litia Talahiva Kupu ID: S11204018 Campus: Laucala Campus

t-statistics = -1.3973, df = 9, p-value = 0.1958

Normality of the p-value = 0.3133
 As a result, since the p-value which was 0.1958 is greater than 0.05. The null
hypothesis was rejected since there is no difference in the fish survey results for
fish reserve for the years of 2012 and 2013.

Question 2 [10 marks]: Using the dataset titled “Fish surveys” in the Week 5 lab
folder on Moodle, you will test the hypothesis that the fish biomass in Nasue qoliqoli
in 2012 was 1950kg/ha.

a) What is the null hypothesis? Use shorthand/notations format. [½]

1950 kg
H0: μ ( Fish biomass ∈Nasue 2012 )=
ha

b) What is the alternative hypothesis? Use shorthand/notations format. [½]

1950 kg
HA: μ ( Fish biomass ∈Nasue 2012 ) ≠
ha

c) What data type is the response variable? [½]

 Response variable is the fish biomass (kg/ha). Data type is ratio type.

c) How many levels of the explanatory variable are there? [½]

 3 Levels of the explanatory variable which would be the feeding time of the
fishes in the reserves (Morning, afternoon and evening).
Name: Litia Talahiva Kupu ID: S11204018 Campus: Laucala Campus

d) Run the necessary checks for determining which statistical test you should use
(i.e., describe the answers to the assumption checks. You must also include any
supporting R code and output for your assumption checks in order to get any
marks. [3]

 Number of samples: 1 sample (Yr1Nausea)

Normality: p-value = 0.1602. Therefore, it is normal.
Since the data is has only one sample and it is also normal, therefore statistical test
used was the single sample t-test or one sample t-test

e) What is the result of the main statistical test that you have decided to apply to test
the hypotheses (i.e., your test statistic, degrees of freedom, and p-value)? Provide
your R code and R output (only for the main test), highlighting the above parts of
the output. [1]

 t-statistics = -34.267
df = 9
p-value = 7.576e-11

g) Provide a well-labeled and neat looking boxplot. [2]

Name: Litia Talahiva Kupu ID: S11204018 Campus: Laucala Campus

h) Write an interpretive sentence of your results (including the stats from the output).
[2]
 There is strong evidence to suggest that the observed difference in fish biomass
(1950kg/ha) is highly significant with a p-value of 7.576e-11 which is less than
0.05 and a degree of freedom of 9. This indicates that the probability of obtaining
such a result by chance alone is extremely low.