Does ‘acoustic anchoring’ reduce post-translocation dispersal of North Island robins?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Context Animal translocations are an important conservation tool; however, post-release dispersal can hinder successful population establishment. Playback of conspecific song attracts dispersing individuals in some species, although its application following animal translocation has yet to be rigorously investigated. Aims To determine whether conspecific song can be used as an ‘acoustic anchor’, we adopted an experimental approach during the translocation of 60 North Island robins (Petroica longipes). Methods At one of two release locations, we broadcast song at natural rates from four speakers (4 h per morning), for 9 days following release; we set the second release location as a control where identical conditions were established but no playback occurred. To assess the impact of playback, we monitored speaker and control locations, surveyed tracks around the release areas, and radio-tracked robins over nine playback days and an additional 9 days. Key results Most robins left both immediate release areas; however, our results showed that (1) more robins (6 birds on 14 of the 18 days), in particular females (3 birds), approached the playback location than the ‘flagged’ control location (3 male birds on 5 of the 18 days), (2) individual robins returned to the playback location repeatedly, unlike those at the control site, and (3) robins also visited the playback location longer after playback than they did silent control locations. In contrast, radio-telemetry data from five robins suggested that general dispersal was not influenced by playback. Two radio-tracked females moved over long distances (some to >3 km from their release location), whereas two radio-tracked males remained relatively close to the release sites. Conclusions We demonstrated a short-term attraction effect of playback over a period of several weeks for some birds, particularly females. In contrast, we detected fewer birds over a shorter period at the silent control release site, where no females were detected. However, long-term monitoring at both sites suggested that the effect of playback on reducing post-release dispersal was transitory. Implications The lack of a clear and lasting effect of acoustic anchoring on dispersal in the present study has provided information on the limited utility of song playback as a conservation management tool for this species. Consideration of the species’ ecology and suitability for ‘acoustic anchoring’ must be made before playback is employed as a conservation measure to reduce excess post-translocation dispersal.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 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".