Hi,
Apologies for such a simple question, however I have read and reread the mark book and am struggling to understand a basic concept and was wondering if someone could explain please?
Essentially are there any guidelines for which formula parameters should be included in a model?
For example I am running a multi-state open robust design and am interested in looking at the survival ect of the population over time. This population isn't static, so when I am inputting Phi parameters, do I need to include Phi dot (~-1) as I know biologically this isnt true? All examples in the book seem to include this, and when I include in my formulas my it has the lowest AIC value (however biologically this model wouldn't make sense and doesn't answer the question!)
Thank you so much in advance,
Jess