Exercise 1.

Various morphometric data and leafy biomass were measured on Moringa oleifera
tree samples from the Guinean Zone in Benin, with a view to describe and characterize leave
production in M. oleifera in terms of easy-to-measure morphological traits. The table below
shows a dataset on diameter at breast height (DBH) and leafy biomass taken from 5 random
trees.

Table 1. DBH and biomass of M. oleifera samples

Tree DBH (cm) Biomass (u.a.)

1 10.1 326.0
2 17.6 408.0
3 16.8 385.6
4 14.1 356.4
5 11.5 305.3

1. A linear relationship is suspected between the leafy biomass and the DBH. Compute the
parameters a (intercept) and b (slope) of the regression of the leafy biomass against the DBH.

2. Check step by step assumptions related to the established linear model.

3. Is the established regression equation valid for the considered M. oleifera population?

4. Give an interpretation of the estimated regression parameters.

5. Compute the coefficient of determination and give an interpretation of the obtained value.

6. Consider the vector of DBH values z = [10, 12, 14, 16, 18].

a) Compute the predicted leafy biomass values related to these DBH values.

b) Computed for each predicted value the related confidence interval.