[R-sig-ME] Lmer for negative binomial data

[Renwick, A. R.]

I am trying to run a glmm with a negative binomial distribution but am having difficulty coding it.
I ran a glm.nb to obtain a value for theta and then used in in the lmer model as below:

 mix<-lmer(realdis~width+(1|site),family=negative.binomial(theta=0.43),data=move)

However, I keep getting error messages:

Error in famType(glmFit$family) :
  unknown GLM family: 'Negative Binomial(0.43)'

If anybody could enlighten me to the best way to procede it would be much apprecaited.

Anna

Anna Renwick
Zoology Building
School of Biological Sciences
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen
AB24 2TZ


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