Energetics and space use: intraspecific and interspecific comparisons of movements and home ranges of two Colubrid snakes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
1. Energy requirements explain substantial variation in movement and home range size among birds and mammals. This study assesses whether the same is true of snakes by comparing ratsnakes (Elaphe obsoleta) and racers (Coluber constrictor), ecologically similar species whose energy requirements appear to differ substantially (racers > ratsnakes). 2. Over 4 years 22 Elaphe and 16 Coluber were radio-tracked at the same site in Illinois to examine how movement and home ranges varied by sex and season. 3. Coluber moved more often and further per move than Elaphe, resulting in their estimated mean day range being almost four times larger than that of Elaphe (88.0 m day(-1) vs. 23.1 m day(-1)). 4. Both male and female Elaphe moved more frequently early in the season consistent with mate-searching, but mean distances moved did not differ seasonally or by sex. Both sexes of Coluber moved more later in the season and overall males moved further than females. 5. Interspecifically, patterns were consistent with the energetics hypothesis--Coluber had mean home ranges approximately four times larger than those of Elaphe. 6. Intraspecifically, increased movement did not always produce larger home ranges. Male Elaphe had larger home ranges than females despite not moving further, whereas male Coluber had comparable home ranges to females despite moving further. Also, Elaphe home ranges in Illinois were substantially smaller than has been documented in Ontario, despite Ontario Elaphe moving less. 7. Our results generally support the energetics hypothesis, but indicate that knowledge of ecology and energetics increases our understanding of area requirements beyond simple allometric predictions.
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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 | 0.001 |
| 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 | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| 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".