The fitness correlates of scalation asymmetry in garter snakes<i>Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Summary In a field population in Manitoba, about 16% of Red‐Sided Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) have a different number of ribs on either side of the body, as indicated by anomalous ventral scales. A study on congenerics shows that this asymmetry reflects disruption of embryogenesis by environmental factors, including suboptimal maternal thermoregulation during pregnancy. Correlates of this scalation asymmetry in adult snakes can clarify the degree to which (and pathways by which) the thermal environment that an individual experiences during embryogenesis affects its later fitness. Data on >4000 free‐ranging snakes reveal no significant association between asymmetry and fitness‐related traits such as body size, body condition, locomotor speeds or female ability to resist harassment from males. However, adult male snakes with scale asymmetry dispersed from the den‐based mating aggregations sooner than did symmetric males. In outdoor arenas, asymmetric males were less able to obtain matings than were symmetric males; and if asymmetric males did mate, they consistently used the hemipenis on the side of the body opposite to their extra rib. Our data suggest that careful thermoregulation by a female garter snake during pregnancy provides a fitness benefit to her sons after they mature, via sexual selection.
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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 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 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".