Sample Statistics. 1  x refers to a sample mean. 2  s refers to the standard deviation of a sample. 3  s2 refers to the variance of a sample. 4  p refers to the proportion of sample elements that have a particular attribute. 5  q refers to the proportion of sample elements that do not have a particular attribute, so q = 1 - p.
Ecology/Environmental Response. The most basic interest of ecologists is how organisms interact with their environment. Inanimate objects do not normally interactâthey are simply acted upon by forces in the environment. Organisms, however, cannot be totally passive within a chain of events and still sustain life.
When describing a system in the context of its environment we speak about the response and the behavior of the system. The response of a system is how it changes when the environment changes in a particular way. The more general description of a system in the context of diverse conditions is its behavior.