A brief guide to model selection, multimodel inference and model averaging in behavioural ecology using Akaike’s information criterion

Akaike’s information criterion (AIC) is increasingly being used in analyses in the field of ecology. This measure allows one to compare and rank multiple competing models and to estimate which of them best approximates the “true” process underlying the biological phenomenon under study. Behavioural ecologists have been slow to adopt this statistical tool, perhaps because of unfounded fears regarding the complexity of the technique. Here, we...