where: c is the intercept, and α,β and χ are the slope coefficient of
the regression.
Model comparison and selection were based on average deviation (Brand
and Smith, 1985; Chave et al ., 2005), slope coefficient of the
regression (Nelson et al ., 1999), Akaike Information Criterion
(AIC) (Burnham and Anderson, 2002; Chave et al ., 2005),
confidence interval (CI) of the predictions, paired t-test and
Coefficients of determination
(r2).