Ruffed Grouse Brood Habitat Use in Mixed Softwood‐Hardwood Nordic‐Temperate Forests, Quebec, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract: Adequate cover is a critical component of ruffed grouse ( Bonasa umbellus ) habitat during the brood‐rearing period when chick mortality is high. We assessed habitat use by ruffed grouse during the brood‐rearing period by comparing characteristics of tree, shrub, and ground layers at ruffed grouse brood and random locations. We captured and radiomarked 29 females with broods in 2 forest settings of the Réserve faunique de Portneuf, Quebec, Canada. We described grouse habitat using ground surveys and forest maps, and we identified the used habitat characteristics using analysis of variance and logistic regression. Females with broods used mixed and regenerated clearcut stands that were 1.5–7 m tall and 11–20 years old. Compared with random locations, grouse locations had higher lateral obstruction (76% vs. 68%), higher small‐stem density (29,085 stems/ha vs. 19,340 stems/ha), and were closer to roads and trails. Percentage of coverage by ground vegetation was not higher at grouse locations as often reported in previous studies. Results from this study will help orient ruffed grouse habitat management on Quebec public land and elsewhere in nordic—temperate mixed hardwood—softwood forests to maintain suitable brood habitat after logging operations. Forest management should promote growth of young mixed stands with high horizontal and vertical cover provided by high small‐stem density, which offers protection against aerial and terrestrial predation. Edges such as roadsides are also important in brood habitat as they provide food and cover.
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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 | 0.001 |
| 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 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 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".