Data from: Digging through model complexity: using hierarchical models to uncover evolutionary processes in the wild

The growing interest for studying questions in the wild requires acknowledging that eco-evolutionary processes are complex, hierarchically structured and often partially observed or with measurement error. These issues have long been ignored in evolutionary biology, which might have led to flawed inference when addressing evolutionary questions. Hierarchical modelling (HM) has been proposed as a generic statistical framework to deal with complexity in ecological data and account for uncertainty. However, to date, HM has seldom been used to investigate evolutionary mechanisms possibly underlying observed patterns. Here, we contend the HM approach offers a relevant approach for the study of eco-evolutionary processes in the wild by confronting formal theories to empirical data through proper statistical inference. Studying eco-evolutionary processes requires considering the complete and often complex life histories of organisms. We show how this can be achieved by combining sequentially all life histories components and all available sources of information through HM. We demonstrate how eco-evolutionary processes may be poorly inferred or even missed without using the full potential of HM. As a case study, we use the Atlantic salmon and data on wild marked juveniles. We assess a reaction norm for migration and two potential trade-offs for survival. Overall, HM has a great potential to address evolutionary questions and investigate important processes that could not previously be assessed in laboratory or short time-scale studies.野外演化相关研究的兴趣日益高涨，这要求我们正视如下事实：生态进化过程（eco-evolutionary processes）兼具复杂性与层级结构特征，且常存在观测不全或测量误差的问题。长期以来，演化生物学领域一直忽视了这些问题，这可能导致在解答演化类问题时得出存在缺陷的统计推论。层级建模（hierarchical modelling, HM）已被提出作为一种通用统计框架，用于处理生态数据的复杂性并考量不确定性。然而迄今为止，层级建模（HM）极少被用于探究观测到的演化模式背后潜在的演化机制。本文主张，借助规范的统计推断将形式化理论与经验数据相对照，层级建模方法可为野外生态进化过程的研究提供切实可行的路径。对生态进化过程的研究，需要考量生物体完整且通常极为复杂的生活史特征。本文展示了如何通过层级建模，按序整合所有生活史组分与各类可用信息源，以达成此类研究目标。本文还证明，若未能充分发挥层级建模的全部潜力，可能会对生态进化过程做出不准确的推论，甚至完全遗漏相关过程。作为案例研究，本文以大西洋鲑（Atlantic salmon）以及野外标记幼体的相关数据为研究对象，评估了与迁徙相关的反应规范（reaction norm）以及两种潜在的生存权衡机制。总体而言，层级建模（HM）具备极大的应用潜力，可用于解答演化相关问题，并探究此前无法在实验室或短时间尺度研究中得以评估的关键过程。