Set of generalized linear mixed effect models (Restricted Estimate of Maximum Likelihood) with different random structures and different measures of elk age, either allowing individuals to change behaviour between years or not.

Abstract

<p>Elk have been monitored for multiple years, and the terminology ‘true age’ implies the actual age of the elk in a given year. The term ‘age at capture’ implies the age of the elk kept constant to that recorded at the beginning of the monitored period. ‘True age’ allows models to account for behavioural adjustments with age (learning), while ‘age at capture’ does not allow depicting learning processes. The 5 <i>a priori models</i> were run to explain the variability of three different response variables (log step-length, use of terrain ruggedness, use of forest). The top ranked structure (#5) selected using AIC was the same for all response variables. Because model selection was performed on models with different random effect structures, we opted to use the number of levels of the random effects minus 1 as the punishment for added random effects when calculating the AIC.</p