Data from: Testing determinants of the annual individual fitness: an overall mean mixture model for de-lifing data

1. The de-lifing method (Coulson et al. 2006), though very promising for studying ecological and evolutionary changes, has been scarcely used to identify factors influential on fitness.
2. Through simulations representative of a variety of iteroparous species, we establish that a two-component normal mixture usually provides a much better representation of de-lifing data than the single normal distribution assumed in classical linear models.
3. To test determinants of the annual individual fitness, we propose the Overall Mean Mixture Model (O3M), a mixture model parameterized in terms of the overall mean of the mixture distribution.
4. We examine the gain in performance and accuracy when using the O3M over classical linear models and bootstrap methods on simulated finite normal mixture distributions for different regression shapes and variance structure, and apply it to a real data set to study how the annual individual fitness varies with age in Alpine marmots.
5. The O3M improves considerably the precision of the estimates and hence the power of the analysis. We discuss the adaptation of the O3M model to more complex distributions and advise on its use.

1. 脱除寿命法（de-lifing method，Coulson等，2006）虽在生态学与进化变化研究中极具应用前景，但极少被用于识别影响个体适合度的关键因子。
2. 本研究通过针对各类多次繁殖物种（iteroparous species）的模拟实验，证实双分量正态混合模型通常能比经典线性模型所假设的单正态分布，更精准地拟合脱除寿命法所得的数据。
3. 为检验年度个体适合度的决定因子，本研究提出整体均值混合模型（Overall Mean Mixture Model，简称O3M）——一种以混合分布整体均值为参数构建的混合模型。
4. 本研究针对不同回归形状与方差结构的有限正态混合分布模拟数据，对比了O3M与经典线性模型、自助法（bootstrap）的性能与精度提升效果；随后将该模型应用于真实数据集，以探究阿尔卑斯旱獭（Alpine marmots）的年度个体适合度随年龄的变化规律。
5. O3M可显著提升估计精度，进而增强分析的检验功效。本研究还探讨了O3M适配更复杂分布的改进路径，并为其实际应用提供实操建议。