Feeding ecology of polymorphic larval barred tiger salamanders in playas of the Southern Great Plains
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In playas of the Southern Great Plains, larval barred tiger salamanders ( Ambystoma tigrinum mavortium Baird, 1850) (= Ambystoma mavortium mavortium ) are present as polymorphic populations. Typical and cannibal morphs have been previously investigated but intermediate forms have received little attention and their role in playa food web structure is unknown. We investigated the diet composition of these three morphotypes and compared diet preferences of typical versus nontypical morphs. Typical and intermediate morphs had similar body morphology (snout to vent length and stomach content mass), but cannibal morphs had larger stomach content mass than the other morphotypes. However, the intermediate morph had a distinctive diet composition from cannibal and typical individuals as determined by diet composition rankings, diet overlap and similarity indices, and diet diversity. By comparing prey availability versus consumption, we determined that nontypical morphs preferred larger invertebrates such as tadpole shrimps (Triopsidae) and fairy shrimps (Streptocephalidae), whereas typical morphs preferred smaller prey taxa like ostracods (Cyprididae) and water boatmen (Corixidae). Several prey taxa were avoided by all larvae suggesting that feeding in A. t. mavortium in playas is not opportunistic. Our study demonstrates that larval A. t. mavortium are present not only as dimorphic but also as polymorphic populations in playas and indicates that identifying these morphs is essential for the proper understanding of aquatic food webs.
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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 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| 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".