Refer to the Journal of Biogeography (Dec. 2003) study of ants in Mongolia, presented in Exercise 2.68 (p. 63). Data on annual rainfall, maximum daily temperature, percentage of plant cover, number of ant species, and species diversity index recorded at each of 11 study sites are saved in the ANTS file.

a. Construct a scatter plot to investigate the relationship between annual rainfall and maximum daily temperature. What type of trend (if any) do you detect?

b. Use scatter plots to investigate the relationship that annual rainfall has with each of the other four variables in the data set. Are the other variables positively or negatively related to rainfall?

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Data for Exercise 2.68 Max. Daily Temp. (°C) Annual Rainfall (mm) Total Plant Cover (%) Number of Species Diversity Ant Species Region Site Index Dry Steppe Dry Steppe Dry Steppe Dry Steppe Dry Steppe Gobi Desert Gobi Desert Gobi Desert Gobi Desert Gobi Desert Gobi Desert 1 40 196 5.7 3 .89 .83 196 5.7 7.0 52 3 52 3 179 197 40 1.31 1.48 8.0 8.5 43 27 30 149 .97 112 10.7 11.4 49 .46 125 16 30 56 1.23 99 10.9 11.4 4 125 .76 1.26 10 84 11.4 11.4 22 11 115 14 4 .69 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 (Table 1 and 2).