African armyworm moths often migrate long distances in large numbers, devastating crops along the way. The direction of their movement is often downwind, raising the question of whether the moths orient to the wind direction. Reynolds et al. (2016) reported measurements of moth orientation during separate migration events. For each event, they recorded the direction of wind flow, measured as deviation from North in degrees (positive numbers indicate deviations to the East and negative numbers deviations to the West). They also recorded the average direction of the moths’ orientation of their body axis, again measured in degrees from the North. Does orientation direction correlate with wind direction? The data below are the wind direction and mean orientation for 15 separate movement events. A scatter plot with both axes drawn to the same scale is also provided.

a. Based on the scatter plot, which is more variable: wind direction or moth orientation direction?

b. What is the correlation between wind direction and orientation in the sample?

c. Is there evidence that this correlation differs from 0?

Transcribed Image Text:

Wind direction 210 210 100 100 9090 9090 8181 7979 6060 5050 5050 1010 -9-9 -16-16 -30-30 -50-50 -70-70 Orientation direction 22 4747 2020 1616 2727 1313 88 -2-2 -9-9 -18-18 -1-1 -6-6 00 -37-37 2424