I have been using ‘brms’ for a while now and slowly increasing the complexity of my models. I would like some insight into whether the specification of my model is correct to answer my question.
I have hierarchical data with four nested variables and one response variable.
act = nightly bat activity (response variable)
Site = first level (four sites)
Month = second level (nested within Site) (12 months)
Hour = third level (nested within Site and Months) (15 hours)
Wind speed = fifth level (nested within Site, Month, and Hour)
My ‘brms’ specification looks like this.
brm(data = dt1,
family = negbinomial(),
act ~ (1 | Location / Month / Hour / scale_Wind.sp),
prior = model.prior,
iter = 2000, warmup = 500, cores = 4, chains = 4, backend = "cmdstanr",
control = list(adapt_delta = 0.99, max_treedepth = 15),
threads = threading(2))
My question is: What is the relationship between hour of night and wind speed on bat activity?
Is my model specification correct for my question?
Thanks in advance for your insight.