Do Seaducks Minimise the Flightless Period?: Inter- and Intra-Specific Comparisons of Remigial Moult
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Remigial moult is one of the crucial events in the annual life cycle of waterfowl as it is energetically costly, lasts several weeks, and is a period of high vulnerability due to flightlessness. In waterfowl, remigial moult can be considered as an energy-predation trade-off, meaning that heavier individuals would minimise the flightless period by increasing feather growth rate and energy expenditure. Alternatively, they could reduce body mass at the end of this period, thereby reducing wing-loading to increase flight capability. We studied timing of remigial moult, primary growth rates, flightlessness duration, and the pattern of body mass variation in 5 species of captive seaducks (Melanitta fusca, M. perspicillata, Clangula hyemalis, Histrionicus histrionicus, and Somateria mollissima) ranging in size from 0.5 to 2.0 kg. Their feather growth rates weakly increased with body mass (M0.059) and no correlation was found at the intra-specific level. Consequently, heavier seaduck species and especially heavier individuals had a longer flightless period. Although birds had access to food ad libidum, body mass first increased then decreased, the latter coinciding with maximum feather growth rate. Level of body mass when birds regained flight ability was similar to level observed at the beginning of remigial moult, suggesting they were not using a strategic reduction of body mass to reduce the flightlessness duration. We suggest that the moulting strategy of seaducks may be the result of a compromise between using an intense moult strategy (simultaneous moult) and a low feather growth rate without prejudice to feather quality. Despite the controlled captive status of the studied seaducks, all five species as well as both sexes within each species showed timing of moult reflecting that of wild birds, suggesting there is a genetic component acting to shape moult timing within wild birds.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| 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".