Fig 5. The deviation in predicted prey total length (TL) across sample size.

We resampled our largest dataset (walleye; n = 18,102) without replacement generating a range of smaller sample sizes and evaluated how sensitive prey total length predictions are to the number of observations used to develop the model. The 1^st, 50^th, and 99^th percentile regression (i.e., the minimum, median, and maximum ingested prey total length models; IP_min, IP₅₀, and IP_max, respectively) was reanalyzed at each reduced sample size and the predicted prey total length consumed at the 1^st, 50^th, 99^th percentiles of predator total length (131, 483, and 682 mm, respectively) was estimated. These estimates were compared to the model-estimated prey total length derived with the full dataset (n = 18,102) to determine the deviation as sample size is reduced. This procedure was repeated 1,000 times at each sample size to calculate the mean deviance (thick black line), ± 1 standard deviation (SD; dark gray polygon), and ± 2 standard deviations (light gray polygon). Shown with ± 5 mm as thin dashed lines.