Response variable (Before,during, after) is it ordinal or multinomial? Hi I am looking at elemental concentrations in pectoral fin rays the year before spawn, year of spawn, and the year after spawn. I will be creating a logistic regression model to see if I can predict the year related to spawn using the elemental concentrations measurements. Would the response variable (year before, spawn year, year after) be ordinal or multinomial?

Your response variable is ordinal because there is clear ordering to it: before -> during -> after. You'd typically fit an ordinal logistic regression to this kind of data, though sometimes it is convenient to treat it otherwise (e.g. as continuous).
A multinomial logistic would be called for if your response variable had categories with no ordering e.g. apple/banana/orange.
