MCMCglmm and multimembership analysis
Dear List, I have two questions about MCMCglmm and multimembership models (aka multiple membership models). I am using these models to study social influence. In my scenario, the focal individuals express a phenotype (the dependent variable) depending on their social environment. The social environment is made up of other individuals. For example: MCMCglmm(phenotype ~ 1, random = ~focalID + mm(partnerID1 + partnerID2 + partnerID2), data=data) ...but the partners are also weighted (i.e., some interact more closely with the focal than others). Q1: Can MCMCglmm specify weights for the multimembership structure? I have been able to do this in brms, but I haven?t seen an example for how the weights could be done in MCMCglmm. The second part of my question stems from the fact that a given individual can act both as a focal and a partner, and I am specifically interested in the covariance between these two sources of variation. (i.e., I would like to be able to evaluate whether IDs that score highly on the phenotype also elicit higher levels of the phenotype in others, using the same model.) In a simpler, non-multimembership scenario, I would model this covariance as: MCMCglmm(phenotype ~ 1, random = ~str(focalID + partnerID), rcov = ~units, data=data) Q2: Can MCMCglmm accommodate the covariance between a single multimembership structure and focalID, in the same model? ?e.g., something like this: MCMCglmm(phenotype ~ 1, random = ~str(focalID + mm(partnerID1 + partnerID2 + partnerID3)), rock = ~units, data=data) I have verified that brms doesn't currently have the functionality to do this. Any guidance is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Roslyn Dakin, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the University of Ottawa Website and blog: roslyndakin.com Email: roslyn.dakin at gmail.com [[alternative HTML version deleted]]