[R-sig-ME] Meta-analysis for heritability using MCMCglmm?

[Jackie Wood]

Dear R-users,

I am attempting to conduct a meta-analysis to investigate the relationship
of narrow-sense heritability with population size. In previous work, I have
used MCMCglmm to conduct a formal meta-analysis which allowed me to account
for the effect of sampling error through the argument "mev". This was
relatively easy to do for a continuous response variable, however,
heritability is presented as a proportion and is therefore bounded by 0 and
1 which clearly changes the situation.

In fact, I am not actually certain if it possible to conduct a formal
weighted meta-analysis on the heritability data using MCMCglmm. I have seen
elsewhere where data presented as a proportion (survival, yolk-conversion
efficiency for example) has been logit transformed and fitted using a
Gaussian error distribution (though this was done using REML rather than
Bayesian modelling) but I don't know if this is a legitimate strategy for a
formal meta-analysis using heritability as a response variable since any
transformation applied to the heritability data would also need to be
applied to the standard errors?

I would greatly appreciate any advice on this matter!

Cheers,
Jackie

-- 
Jacquelyn L.A. Wood, PhD.
Biology Department
Concordia University
7141 Sherbrooke St. West
Montreal, QC
H4B 1R6
Phone: (514) 293-7255

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]