Environmental Biologists Studying the Relationship Between the Number of Owls

question 50

Multiple Choice

Environmental biologists studying the relationship between the number of owls in a forested region and the number of field mice in the region believe that the deterministic component of the
Relationship is a straight line. A scatterplot shows that even though the general trend is linear, the
Points do not fall exactly on a straight line. Which of the following factors might account for the
Random component of this regression model?

• A) Variation in the size of the mice might cause variation in the amount of mice consumed by owls.
• B) Different size owls might affect the number of mice eaten.
• C) Variability might appear in the instrument used to count mice.
• D) All of these are possible factors that could account for the random component of the regression model.