A scientist wants to study maing behaviour in crickets

Full Question:

A scientist wants to study mating behaviors in crickets. She hypothesizes that males that win the most male vs male contests mate with the most female. She observes the crickets to obtain data. For each male, she counts the number of male-male fights he wins and the number of females he mates with. What is the independent variable?

Answer:

The number of fights is the independent variable.

Explanation:

Independent variable in an event is defined as the event that's occurring and its number is fixed from the beginning. Also all the other dependent variable or dependent events are completely dependent on these independent events and their number varies with the change of independent variable.

Here in this event, the independent variable is the number of fights. The number of fights is actually the number of males - 1 and this number of males in a community is fixed. Till the end, the males will fight and the final winner will have the chance to mate with the most number of females. So the number of fights in the community is the independent variable here.