Social structure and residency in aggregations of male sperm whales
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are sexually dimorphic in several respects, including size, latitudinal distribution, and social structure. Females are known to have complex social structures, including long-term bonds, but the social structures of sexually mature or maturing males have received much less attention. Using data from aggregations of males off Norway, Nova Scotia, New Zealand, and the Galápagos Islands, we examined aggregation size, residence times within aggregations, clustering at the surface, and long-term bonds. Results were generally consistent among study areas. The aggregations found in each area contained around 1030 males at any time, and were usually a few tens of kilometres across. Mean residence times within aggregations ranged from a few days to a few weeks. Close clustering at the surface was rare, but present at each site. There was no evidence for preferred companionship between individuals at any temporal scale in any of the study areas. The rarity of clustering and the apparent lack of long-term relationships amongst male sperm whales contrast strongly with results of studies on females, suggesting that both close spatial proximity at the surface and permanent bonds between individuals may be a consequence of the need for care of the young.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 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".