An Ecologist Is Studying the Relationship Between a Beetle Species

question 35

Multiple Choice

An ecologist is studying the relationship between a beetle species and a flower species. She examines six plants and counts the number of beetles and the number of flowers on each plant. $$\begin{array} { | l | l | } \hline \text { Number of flowers } & \text { Number of beetles } \\\hline 1 & 1 \\\hline 2 & 4 \\\hline 3 & 9 \\\hline 4 & 16 \\\hline 5 & 25 \\\hline 6 & 36 \\\hline\end{array}$$
What can we conclude from the data?

• A) Flowers cause beetles to be more abundant.
• B) Beetles cause plants to grow more flowers.
• C) A third unmeasured variable causes both beetles and flowers to increase.
• D) There is no way to determine causation in the relationship between flowers and beetles based solely on this data set.

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