The table shows the average population of two competing weeds over a square meter of ground in a georgia field. the table also gives the average rainfall for five successive years. if there was an extended drought in this area, what would be a reasonable prediction?

If we take the five years of rainfall given in the table as representative of the rainfall variability of the study area, then we can say that dry years are years with rainfall of 100 cm/year of less, whereas wet years are greater than 100 cm/year. We see from the table, that during the dry years, the chicory seems to be outcompeting the sweet pea, whereas during the wet years, the sweet pea outcompetes the chicory. So given this limited information, we can predict that the chicory would dominate. However, it must be pointed out that to derive a scientifically-defensible conclusion, we would need more replicates (study plots) studied over a longer time period.