Stable isotope niche differentiation in sticklebacks with symmetric and asymmetric pectoral fins
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is often, but controversially, viewed as an indicator of fitness and a target of selection. In the brook stickleback, Culaea inconstans (Kirtland), FA of the pectoral fins, which are the main source of propulsion, is inversely correlated with fecundity. We examined the hypothesis that asymmetry of the pectoral fins could affect locomotion in such a way as to influence foraging and niche use in prereproductive brook stickleback. Nitrogen and carbon stable isotope analysis showed the diet of symmetric and asymmetric males diverged with increasing body size. Larger symmetric males fed at higher trophic levels and had a diet based on carbon emanating from a more pelagic source than their asymmetric counterparts. Such effects were not observed in females or smaller males. The number of chironomid larvae found in the gut was greater on average in asymmetric than symmetric fish. The results from this study strongly suggest FA of pectoral fins affects the foraging behaviour of C. inconstans and that stable isotope analyses of individual phenotypes provides a useful tool for assessing the ecological consequences of FA.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".