Ecological Archives E096-036-A2
Adrienne L. Godschalx, Martin Schädler, Julie A. Trisel, Mehmet A. Balkan, and Daniel J. Ballhorn. 2015. Ants are less attracted to the extrafloral nectar of plants with symbiotic, nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. Ecology 96:348–354. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/14-1178.1
Appendix B. Initial conceptual “saturated” model of the relationship between rhizobia, aboveground plant traits, number of ants attracted and the model selection procedure.
Fig. B1. Initial conceptual model with all relationships indicated between rhizobia, plant traits and ant response that were considered in the SEM analysis.
Table B1. Final model selection procedure. Every step represents the removal of a relationship from the model and the resulting model fit indices. The final model is presented in bold. The following steps represent the results of the tentatively removal of further covariances from the model which resulted in worse model fit. All RMSA-values were < 0.001.
Step |
Relationships |
Estimate |
P |
χ2 |
AIC |
|||
|
Full model |
|
|
|
|
1.28 (2 df, P = 0.53) |
39.28 |
|
1 |
EFN |
↔ |
Shoot biomass |
-0.05 |
0.96 |
1.28 (3 df, P = 0.73) |
37.28 |
|
2 |
HCN |
↔ |
EFN |
-0.36 |
0.68 |
1.45 (4 df, P = 0.84) |
35.45 |
|
3 |
Proteins |
↔ |
EFN |
-0.73 |
0.31 |
2.50 (5 df, P = 0.78 |
34.50 |
|
4 |
Ants |
← |
HCN |
-0.03 |
0.83 |
2.54 (6 df, P = 0.86) |
32.54 |
|
5 |
Ants |
← |
Proteins |
-0.02 |
0.26 |
3.71 (7 df, P = 0.81 |
31.71 |
|
6a |
HCN |
↔ |
Shoot biomass |
41.35 |
0.07 |
7.34 (8 df, P = 0.50) |
33.34 |
|
6b |
HCN |
↔ |
Proteins |
27.44 |
0.08 |
7.02 (8 df, P = 0.53) |
33.02 |
|
6c |
Proteins |
↔ |
Shoot biomass |
70.11 |
0.002 |
17.34 (8 df, P = 0.03) |
43.34 |
|