Table 2. Cumulative AIC values of each independent variable.

Immune measure	Independent variable
	Julian date	Julian date squared	Moult stage	Year	Sex	Order of sampling
Log density leukocytes	0.83	0.77	0.25	0.92	0.88	0.53
Lymphocytes (proportion)	0.98	0.31	0.26	0.27	0.93	0.98
Heterophils (proportion)	0.97	0.25	0.34	0.27	0.92	0.97
Log H/L-ratio	0.98	0.31	0.25	0.27	0.87	0.99
Eos+monoc (proportion)	0.62	0.44	0.96	0.93	0.36	0.45
Reactive leukocytes (proportion)	0.99	0.98	0.51	0.99	0.24	0.41
Lysis (titre)	0.97	0.97	0.25	0.97	0.36	0.25
Agglutination (titre)	0.65	0.37	0.34	0.50	0.29	0.50

Cumulative AICc values of each independent variable based on its contribution to the AICc values of the candidate model set. Values are based on the contribution of the independent variable to the AICc of the candidate model set. Full support would be indicated by 1.00.