Subadult Plumage Color of Female Tree Swallows ( <i>Tachycineta bicolor</i> ) Reduces Conspecific Aggression During the Breeding Season
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Delayed plumage maturation (DPM) in young males (in their second year of life: SY) of some species of birds has been found to reduce aggression directed at these younger males. Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) are unusual because it is SY females rather than males that display DPM; however, the functional significance for DPM remains equivocal. During the breeding season, we tested whether both male and female Tree Swallows behaved differently towards SY and older (after second year: ASY) female Tree Swallow models. When presented as a territory intruder, we predicted that ASY models would receive more aggression from resident pairs if ASY females are perceived as a greater competitive threat. When presented as a territory owner, we predicted that SY models would experience more territorial intrusions if SY plumage is perceived as a signal of inexperience in territory defense. When models were presented as intruders, resident females were more aggressive towards ASY models compared to SY models. When presented as territory owners, ASY models received more aggression than SY models from intruding Tree Swallows, although we suspect that intruders were neighboring Tree Swallows with already established territories, as opposed to birds seeking to settle within the territories of our models. Overall, our results suggest that DPM in female Tree Swallows is an adaptive trait that potentially reduces intrasexual competition for SY females during the breeding season.
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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".