Paired t-test vs two-sample t-test - animal populations From my understanding, a paired t-test is used when samples are dependent of each other.
I'm having trouble deciding whether a paired t-test should be used when comparing the average population of a group of animals. Is this data actually independent?
I'm trying to decide if it is better for me to use a two-sample t-test to determine if there is actually a difference in the number of animals in one year compared to another. As the number of animals in one year doesn't necessarily have an effect of animals on another year, I assume that this is independent data and that a two-sample t-test should be used?

I think a paired t-test is definitely the way to go. For most wildlife animal populations, the abundance in one year will, to some degree, affect the abundance the next year. For example, if population 1 is 400 animals while population 2 is 20,000 animals, you'd expect the abundance of population 2 the next year to be bigger than the abundance of population 1.
Also, as a fellow biologist, always happy to see people diving more into statistics :)
