Question

Dr. Pagels is a mammalogist who studies meadow and common voles. He frequently traps the moles and has noticed what appears to be a preference for a peanut butter-oatmeal mixture by the meadow voles vs apple slices are usually used in traps, where the common voles seem to prefer the apple slices. So he conducted a study where he used a peanut butter-oatmeal mixture in half the traps and the normal apple slices in his remaining traps to see if there was a food preference between the two different voles.

Define the null hypothesis.

Answer 1

There is no relationship between voles and food preference (The food preferences among vole species are independent of one another)

Explanation:

The null hypothesis (H0) tries to show that no significant variation exists between variables or that a single variable is no different than its mean. The null hypothesis tries to establish that the old theory is true. So, for the case above, the old theory is that there is no relationship between voles species and food preference which is the null hypothesis.