Table 1.
Top 5 of explanatory models of breeding success (√bt) of dark-bellied brent geese according to Akaike's information criterion corrected for small sample size (AICc; n = 49). Each model is defined by the listed independent variables: lemming abundance L, spring conditions at the breeding grounds in Taimyr (expressed in growing degree days, GDDb), spring conditions at the departure site in the Wadden Sea (GDDw), average summer temperature in Taimyr (Ts), and population size of competitor species (barnacle goose, ln(Mt-1), Models with a difference of AICc less than two are indicated in bold; K is the number of parameters, ℒ(mi|x) is likelihood of model i given the data, and wi is its Akaike's weight. RMSD is the root mean squared deviation of observed on predicted values (of √bt), and R2 the proportion of the variation in observed values explained by the predicted values (of √bt)
| Model | K | Scaled deviance | ΔAICc | ℒ(mi|x) | wi | Evidence ratio | RMSD | R2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (1) L – ln(Nt-1) + log(GDDb) | 8 | 1·17 | 0·00 | 1·00 | 0·35 | 1·0 | 0·22 | 0·63 |
| (2) L – ln(Nt-1) + log(GDDb) – Ts | 9 | 1·20 | 2·33 | 0·31 | 0·11 | 3·2 | 0·21 | 0·64 |
| (3) L – ln(Nt-1) + log(GDDb) – GDDw | 9 | 1·20 | 2·61 | 0·27 | 0·10 | 3·7 | 0·22 | 0·63 |
| (4) L + log(GDDb) – ln(Mt-1) | 8 | 1·17 | 2·64 | 0·27 | 0·09 | 3·8 | 0·22 | 0·62 |
| (5) L + log(GDDb) | 7 | 1·14 | 2·67 | 0·26 | 0·09 | 3·8 | 0·23 | 0·60 |