Age- and sex-related morphological and physiological differences influence escape capacity in House Sparrows (Passer domesticus)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sexual dimorphism and age-related differences are sources that contribute to morphologic and physiologic variation within animal populations. Measurement of animal performance may indicate whether this variation is functionally relevant. Our study aimed to experimentally test this statement in a captive population of House Sparrows ( Passer domesticus (L., 1758)) by examining age- and sex-related differences in escape response and its relationship to several morphological (tarsus, wing, tail lengths, and body mass) and physiological traits (cell-mediated immunity, natural antibodies, complement activity, hematocrit, and stress response). Escape response from a predator is considered a good variable to measure animal performance, because natural selection clearly favours individuals that avoid predators successfully. Our experimental design also aimed to standardize possible confounding factors affecting escape behaviour under natural conditions. We exposed sparrows to short episodes of high predation risk by simulating the attack of a predator and assumed that the capture order of individuals was related to their escape capacity. The optimal strategy was the immediate escape response for all individuals. We found that first-year males were the best escapers. In support of the hypothesis, juvenile males gathered a better optimum of several morphological and physiological characters that related to capture order.
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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".