Fisher’s exact test is a statistical significance test that calculates the p-value and indicates an association between two variables. For example, scientists tagged 50 king penguins in each of three nesting areas (lower, middle, and upper) and counted the numbers that were alive or dead after a year. The following were the results.
| Alive | Dead | |
| Upper nesting area | 43 | 7 |
| Middle nesting area | 44 | 6 |
| Lower nesting area | 49 | 1 |
Are these differences significant?
penguin.nest <- data.frame("Alive" = c(43, 44, 49), "Dead" = c(7, 6, 1), row.names = c("Lower", "Middle", "Upper"))
fisher.test(penguin.nest)The p-value is 0.0896; it is not significant.
