Bird behaviour on and entanglement in invasive burdock (<em>Arctium</em> spp.) plants in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Burdocks (Arctium spp.) are invasive plants native to Eurasia. They produce their seeds within large burrs that adhere to vertebrates for seed dispersal, i.e., epizoochory. Small animals may become entangled in these burrs and die. Through active searches of natural areas in Winnipeg, Manitoba, from 2000 to 2005, we documented 29 songbirds entangled in burdock burrs and recorded observations of bird behaviour on burdock plants. We analyzed trends among birds found entangled by taxon, sex, age, migratory status, and season, and we compared them to observations of bird activity on burdock. Thirteen species of birds were found entangled. Most birds found entangled (62%) were warblers (Parulidae), but there were also species from five other families (<15% per family). There was no significant difference in the distribution of birds found entangled by sex or age. A significant proportion of birds found entangled were migrants, and the average number of birds found entangled per search visit differed significantly by season, with most birds found entangled in fall. By comparison, we recorded 34 species of birds (n = 178 observations) active on burdock plants. Warblers (38%) and sparrows (Emberizidae) (24%) were the most active, followed by small numbers of birds from eight other families (<9% per family). Species that were observed actively foraging on burdocks more often became entangled than those species observed only perching on burdocks. Species found entangled had a significantly lower body mass than species that were not found entangled but were active on burdocks. Overall, we suggest that small-bodied fall migrants that forage on burdock plants are most at risk of becoming entangled.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".