SPSS Assignment : Ecological theory : US Christmas Bird Counts

Internal code : MAS2026 Data are in the file ‘ducks16.sav’ Ecological theory predicts that more abundant hosts will have more species of parasites. Test this prediction using data on the number of mallophaga (chewing lice) species that parasitise 32 different US duck species. Host abundance data come from US Christmas Bird Counts: there are two measures of duck abundance provided: (i) the number of sites at which the duck was found (“CBC sites”) and (ii) the total number of ducks counted across all sites (“CBC number”). (a) Is mallophaga diversity significantly affected by host abundance, as measured by each of the two variables considered separately? (b) Can you make a better prediction if you use both measures of abundance? Show your working, and explain your choice of tests and conclusions, using graphs or tables where appropriate.