Hi

My statistcal analysis is rather complicated. I have a situation where I have four factors, with one of the been nested into two of them and the one factor interacting with the rest as well the nested factor being random. This all results from a glasshouse pot experiment I conducted. I had two groups, "Legumes" and "Non-legumes", with each group containing three genera and each genus containing two species. Therefore there are three factors so far, Group, Genus and Species. Now species are nested within genus and group. The fourth factor is the treatment, all species were treated with two levels of phosphorus. In the analysis, phosphorus needs to interact with the other three factors. So what I have is design with both nested and factorial factors and I need the two to interact ( Biomass~(Group/Genus/Species)*Phosphorus). My problem is how to go about indicating that the Species factor, which is nested with genus and group is random. What package do I use (lme4) and how do I indicate the random effects with the interaction? Here is an example of my data set. Can anyone help?


      Group Genus Species Phosphorus   Biomass 
      legume Aspalathus A.nivea 5 0.673609 
      legume Aspalathus A.nivea 5 0.550403 
      legume Aspalathus A.nivea 5 0.675882 
      legume Aspalathus A.nivea 50 1.142929 
      legume Aspalathus A.nivea 50 1.068928 
      legume Aspalathus A.nivea 50 1.113317 
      legume Aspalathus A.subtingens        5 0.105958 
      legume Aspalathus A.subtingens 5 0.693448 
      legume Aspalathus A.subtingens 5 0.176855 
      legume Aspalathus A.subtingens 50 0.819652 
      legume Aspalathus A.subtingens 50 0.878823 
      legume Aspalathus A.subtingens 50 0.739474 
      legume Cyclopia C.genistoides 5 0.261887 
      legume Cyclopia C.genistoides 5 0.14915 
      legume Cyclopia C.genistoides 5 -0.29405 
      legume Cyclopia C.genistoides 50 0.395505 
      legume Cyclopia C.genistoides 50 -0.06538 
      legume Cyclopia C.genistoides 50 0.227878 
      legume Cyclopia C.pubescens 5 -0.09903 
      legume Cyclopia C.pubescens 5 0.285057 
      legume Cyclopia C.pubescens 5 0.082526 
      legume Cyclopia C.pubescens 50 0.493785 
      legume Cyclopia C.pubescens 50 0.819986 
      legume Cyclopia C.pubescens 50 0.52278 
      legume Indigofera I.cytisoides 5 0.281444 
      legume Indigofera I.cytisoides 5 0.320145 
      legume Indigofera I.cytisoides 5 0.408235 
      legume Indigofera I.cytisoides 50 0.110623 
      legume Indigofera I.cytisoides 50 0.045725 
      legume Indigofera I.cytisoides 50 0.237567 
      legume Indigofera I.filifolia 5 0.754342 
      legume Indigofera I.filifolia 5 0.501069 
      legume Indigofera I.filifolia 5 0.675605 
      legume Indigofera I.filifolia 50 0.242735 
      legume Indigofera I.filifolia 50 0.470992 
      legume Indigofera I.filifolia 50 0.319055 
      Nonlegume  Elegia E.capensis 5 0.895721 
      Nonlegume     Elegia E.capensis 5 0.912309 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.capensis 5 0.782282 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.capensis 50 0.789401 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.capensis 50 0.685056 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.capensis 50 0.748347 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.persistens 5 -0.01635 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.persistens 5 0.217623 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.persistens 5 0.124578 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.persistens 50 0.109245 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.persistens 50 -0.02805 
      Nonlegume Elegia E.persistens 50 0.03836 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron    L.coniferum 5 0.552093 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron    L.coniferum 5 0.570604 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron    L.coniferum 5 0.509527 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron    L.coniferum 50 0.680958 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron    L.coniferum 50 0.457217 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron    L.coniferum 50 0.793007 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron    L.spissifolium 5 -0.03283 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron L.spissifolium 5 -0.04771 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron L.spissifolium 5 -0.01289 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron L.spissifolium 50 0.44862 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron L.spissifolium 50 0.42483 
      Nonlegume Leucadendron L.spissifolium 50 0.480291 
      Nonlegume Protea P.grandiceps 5 -0.24493 
      Nonlegume Protea P.grandiceps 5 -0.38648 
      Nonlegume Protea P.grandiceps 5 -0.2004 
      Nonlegume Protea P.grandiceps 50 -0.17161 
      Nonlegume Protea P.grandiceps 50 -0.07897 
      Nonlegume Protea P.grandiceps 50 -0.14574 
      Nonlegume Protea P.speciosa 5 0.447133 
      Nonlegume Protea P.speciosa 5 0.47613 
      Nonlegume Protea P.speciosa 5 0.412907 
      Nonlegume Protea P.speciosa 50 0.365221 
      Nonlegume Protea P.speciosa 50 0.517435 
      Nonlegume Protea P.speciosa 50 0.286728 

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