Hi, I have 2 questions, both pertaining to additive mixed models using mgcv(). I have fit several additive mixed models using the mgcv package (v 1.4) in R (v 2.8) modeling log chlorophyll as follows: mod<-try(gamm(log(Chl) ~ s(Year,bs="cs") + s(Latitude,Longitude,bs="tp") + s(Dayofyear,bs="cc",k=6) + s(Depth,bs="cs") + as.factor(depcat),data=d,gamma=1.4,random=list(newarea10=~1))) Question 1: I am interested in examining the yearly trend in chlorophyll abundance but having looked over previous posts I see that plot.gam() returns a smooth function that is centered on 0 and that this can be modified by adding the model intercept IF THERE IS ONLY ONE COVARIATE. I have several covariates, but tried to transform the smooth function by adding my model intercept and exponentiating the smooth function as follows: #exponentiates response to transform from log scale I<-function(x){exp(x)} #plots transformed yearly smooth function plot.gam(mod$gam,residuals=T,select=1,scale=-1,shade=T,shade.col="grey",seWithMean=TRUE,pch=46,cex=3,shift=mod$lme$coef$fixed[1],trans=i) The plot seems biologically realistic, but I wanted to make sure this is statistically valid, as previous posts indicated it might not be. Question 2: More of a statistics question, but I was wondering how important the assumption of normally distributed random effects for additive mixed models is? Mine are slightly kurtotic (peaked), but otherwise normal. I know that when examining residuals for many models (linear, generalized linear), that the assumption of normality becomes less important as the sample size increases due to large sample theory. Is this reasoning similar for random effects? Thanks in advance for your time and help, this forum is a wonderful resource. Daniel Boyce. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Transforming-smooth-functions-of-gam-using-mgcv-tp22016166p22016166.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.