[R-meta] residual error term in rma.mv

[Kelly, Clint Dale]

A manuscript reviewer recently asked my colleagues and I:

"Were the author’s careful to ensure the residual error term was included in their models. rma.mv does not, by default include this term, and it needs to be specified.”

It is not clear to me to what they refer and how to “specific this term”. Any guidance or insight would be much appreciated.

Here is my model in which species identity (Species), study identity (Code) and phylogeny are entered as random factors:

model.1<-rma.mv(yi,vi,random = list(~1|Species,
                                                            ~1|Code,
                                                            ~1|Species.phylo),
                        R=list(Species.phylo=Species.phyl), struct="UN",
                        data=meta.data)

Thanks,
Clint

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