Nesting snakes (<i>Tropidonophis mairii</i>, Colubridae) selectively oviposit in sites that provide evidence of previous successful hatching
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In oviparous species without parental care, nesting females must select an oviposition site that provides incubation conditions favourable to the developing eggs. Abiotic cues (e.g., temperature, moisture) are well known to influence oviposition-site selection, but the potential role of biotic cues (e.g., the presence of eggshells from previous successfully hatched clutches or the scent of egg predators) has rarely been examined in this respect. To test whether nesting females use such cues, we collected gravid keelback snakes (Tropidonophis mairii (Gray, 1841), Colubridae) in tropical Australia and gave them a choice of potential nesting sites in captivity. Females selectively oviposited in sites containing empty eggshells rather than in control sites but did not avoid the scent of a sympatric egg predator (the slatey-grey snake, Stegonotus cucullatus (Duméril, Bibron and Duméril, 1854)); indeed, eggshells of this taxon were as effective as keelback eggs in attracting oviposition. Our study adds to growing evidence that nesting females assess and respond to a diverse array of biotic as well as abiotic cues that predict the probability of successful incubation for their eggs.
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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) | 0.002 | 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".