The evolution of adult body size in black-bellied salamanders (<i>Desmognathus</i><i>quadramaculatus</i>complex)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We investigated the possible role of environmental variables in determining body size within a complex of salamander species (Desmognathus quadramaculatus). We analyzed data generated from life-history studies on populations from throughout the range of this species complex. We incorporated an alternative-hypothesis framework (sensu Platt) to determine the better predictor of adult body size, age at maturity, or size at metamorphosis. We found that almost 90% of the variation in adult body size was explained by size at metamorphosis, which was determined by a combination of rate of larval growth and length of the larval period. Environmental temperature and moisture level were positively correlated with larval growth rate and length of the larval period, respectively. We propose a simple model of body-size evolution that incorporates both adaptive and plastic components. We suggest that the length of the larval period may adaptively respond to moisture-level predictability. In addition, we suggest that the response of the larval growth rate to temperature may be plastic. Because the selection pressure due to drying-induced mortality is pervasive among species of amphibians, it may have played a role in shaping body-size radiation in desmognathines as well as the ecological structure of Appalachian streamside communities.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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".