Reference no: EM131725051

Species-area relationships (SAR) plot the log number of species versus log area of an island or habitat patch as a means to examine how species richness varies with area. If the slope of a species - area relationship equal 1, then it implies that a large patch will have the same number of species/unit area as a small patch. A slope less than 1 implies that large patches will contain fewer species/unit area than small patches, while slopes greater than 1 will imply that large patches contain more species/unit a than small patches. This observation was pivotal in the SLOSS debate about the optimal design of a nature preserve. Some thought that the best design was to protect a single large area while others thought that it implied that it would be a better strategy to protect several small areas of equal total area Single Large Or Several Small). The following data taken from Connor and McCoy (1979) are a random subset of the slopes of 20 SARs from their paper. Test the hypothesis that the average slope does not differ from 1. State your null and alternative hypothesis, perform and report the details of the test, and interpret the results. See attached data file (sar.csv).