Comparisons between experimental and morphometric water vapor conductance in the eggs of extant birds and crocodiles: implications for predicting nest type in dinosaurs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Estimates of water vapor conductance for the eggs (i.e., diffusive capacity of eggshell; Gh2o, mg H2O·day−1·Torr−1) of extinct archosaur species have been used to infer their nest type (i.e., covered vs. open) because experimental Gh2o values for living archosaur species appear to reflect nest type. The methods used to derive Gh2o for fossil eggs (eggshell morphometrics) differs from that for extant eggs (experimental measurements), and it remains unknown if these two methods are comparable or if morphometric Gh2o values correspond to nest type. Although previous studies assumed that Gh2o values derived from the two methods were comparable, this assumption has not been statistically evaluated in a large sample size that includes both crocodiles and birds. Here, Gh2o values for over 100 species of living archosaurs for both morphometric and experimental methods were compiled and compared using statistical analyses. Results showed that although experimental and morphometric Gh2o values are significantly correlated, there is disagreement between the methods particularly apparent in small eggs, likely due to systematic errors. These results suggest that morphometric and experimental Gh2o of living species are not necessarily comparable, although the reason for the discrepancy remains uncertain. Thus, direct comparisons between morphometric Gh2o of dinosaurs and experimental Gh2o of living species should be avoided when inferring the nest type for dinosaurs.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| 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".