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Intro & Methods
| Bermuda 
Results
Of the 16 groups that I got samples from 14 of these
consisted of varying amounts of different species and 2 were made up of
just one species. Chi-Square test gave me 9 as my test statistic which
is higher than the critical value of 3.84 (where the p-value is equal
to .05), therefore I can reject the null hypothesis. Groups that
consisted of multiple species were made up of varying species with no
general trend for one species to be favored over another in
amount/group though groups mainly consisted of parrot fish, grunts, and
surgeon fish. | Observed | Expected | | Multiple Species | 14 | 8 | | One Species | 2 | 8 | | Total | 16 | 16 |
Figure 1 shows the Chi-Square table multiple species vs. one species groups
Discussion By
rejecting the null hypothesis, that these multi-species schools were
there by random chance, I can conclude from my results that the
multi-species schools do indeed serve a purpose and are somehow
advantageous, I just don't know how from these results and the data I
collected. The samples that I took were all foraging groups so perhaps
the it confers some bonus to feeding if one feeds in a group of
multiple species rather than just one species. Other studies suggest
that feeding in multiple species groups increases foraging time, at
least for the ocean surgeon fish(). It's also an interesting point that
Whalebone Bay, in comparison to the other two sites, had the largest
multi-species groups with twenty or more fish in each of the 6 samples.
While I did not get a chance to sample other sites I feel as though
Whalebone is somewhat unique for these groups. No other place we
snorkeled, except maybe Nonsuch Island, had as large or diverse groups
as Whalebone and I feel that it would be interesting to see why that is.
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