Artificial Bird Nests Have Been Used Extensively When Studying Predator

Essay

Artificial bird nests have been used extensively when studying predator behavior. The assumption is that predators will find and respond to artificial nests in the same way they do to the natural nests. In a study to test this hypothesis the predation of 27 American Robin (Turdus migratorius) nests and 27 artificial wicker-basket nests were compared. Artificial nests were placed 30m from existing robin's nests in a randomly chosen direction. The natural nests and artificial nests were checked at 5-day intervals, and the number of nests (out of 27) that had been disturbed by predators in the interval was noted. The results are as follows: ​
(a)Construct a time series plot for the number of natural nests disturbed by predators. Use the same set of axes to plot the number of artificial nests disturbed by predators.
(b)Does it appear that the artificial and natural nests have the same pattern of predation? Justify your answer by appealing to specific aspects of your plot in part (a).