Table 1.

Summary of the posterior distributions of relevant parameters for the three competing models

Parameters	H1. No IH			H2. Fixed IH			H3. Variable IH
	Mean	2.5% LCI	97.5% LCI	Mean	2.5% LCI	97.5% LCI	Mean	2.5% LCI	97.5% LCI
	0.62	0.55	0.67	0.66	0.59	0.72	0.65	0.58	0.71
	0.50	0.42	0.57	0.54	0.45	0.62	0.52	0.43	0.60
ψEE	0.67	0.62	0.72	0.67	0.61	0.73	0.67	0.60	0.72
ψSE	0.67	0.61	0.72	0.76	0.70	0.81	0.74	0.68	0.79
	−0.06	−0.10	−0.03	−0.06	−0.10	−0.01	−0.06	−0.10	−0.02
	−0.08	−0.12	−0.04	−0.10	−0.15	−0.06	−0.09	−0.14	−0.05
	0.12	0.09	0.18	0.14	0.10	0.19	0.13	0.09	0.19
	–	–	–	0.15	0.13	0.18	0.13	0.10	0.16
	–	–	–	–	–	–	0.18	0.13	0.23
	–	–	–	–	–	–	0.11	0.01	0.20

The acronym “IH” stands for “individual heterogeneity”. The mean, and the lower (2.5%) and upper (97.5%) limits of a 95% credible interval (LCI), of the posterior distribution are shown. Symbols with a star (e.g., ) correspond to parameters which value has been transformed back to the more interpretable scale of a probability of reproduction (i.e., in the interval [0,1]). The parameters displayed in this table are as follows: (i) , mean reproductive rate, corresponding to a theoretical value (logit⁻¹(μ)) averaging across states (k), ages, years, and individuals; (ii) rates of reproduction, specific to the reproductive state k at t − 1 and averaged across ages, years, and individuals: first-time breeders (ψ^FE), experienced breeders (ψ^EE), and skip breeders (ψ^SE), (iii) first-order and second-order age-effect parameters; we note that both posterior means of and are negative, but the quadratic trend is still parabolic concave (Fig. 2) because age values were standardized (see Methods); (iv) standard deviation of the normal distribution of random year effects , of random “baseline” individual effects , and of random individual effects expressed during iceberg years ; and (v) the correlation between the two types of individual effects (ρ_α,β).