Further to my original post, I am currently trying to use the Fit model platform to determine how each of my sampled leaf traits (e.g. leaf thickness, leaf area, leaf water content, leaf carbon content, etc.), vary with 3 model effects:
1. tree species (12 different trees)
2. leaf age (9 leaf ages from youngest to oldest: Y1, Y2, Y3, Y/M, M, O, S, O/S1, O/S2)
3. different light conditions (SUn, SHade Mid, SHade Low)
I tried running an analysis using leaf water content as 'Y' and lightCondition*leafAge as model effects using the 'Cross' option(interactions). However, I got a window saying: 'The model is missing an effect' and this made me realise that I had not considered that I have an unbalanced sampling design in 3 different ways:
1. the sample sizes are different for each leaf age when all the trees are pooled together and also when considered by individual tree
2. the leaf ages between trees are all different: a tree might have only 1 leaf age or up to six leaf ages with each tree having a different combination of the possible 9 leaf ages
3. all trees have SU leaves but only 4 trees have SH Mid and one of these has also SH Low, furthermore, only the canopy position SH Mid has leaf age O/S2
Could someone advise me how to deal with this? I tried changing the 'Personality' of the model from 'standard least squares' to 'generalised linear model' with 'distribution' set as 'normal' and the 'link function' as 'identity' (i.e. no transformation, I think this is correct?). But I still get the 'The model is missing an effect' message and basically, I think the problem comes down to how to deal with missing data. How can I tell JMP Pro to put a 'NA' in all the places where I have missing data? I ignored the 'missing effect' error message and ran the analysis anyway and the results show that JMP Pro seems to be 'filling in' missing data. For example, the results include leaf age O/S2 for the SUn leaves which does not exist (I think is the source of the 'model is missing an effect' window) and from looking at the results it seems the internal algorithm weighting and balancing are getting messed up due to this. I would be very grateful for any advise on how to deal with this missing data in JMP Pro.
Thanks in advance for the help! Cecilia