Hide or die: use of cover decreases predation risk in juvenile North Axmerican porcupines
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In many mammals, juveniles are vulnerable to predators because of their low mobility and small body size. Cover hides juveniles from predators and has been assumed to lower predation risk. However, among mammal species, studies relating use of cover to fitness remain infrequent and have been predominantly performed on ungulates. We measured habitat selection and survival of juvenile North American porcupines ( Erethizon dorsatum ). We tested whether juveniles selected for cover, use of cover depended on meteorological conditions (there could be a trade-off between predation risk and radiative heat gain during sunny days), and use of cover influenced survival. We also examined how sex, body mass, mobility of the juvenile, and distance to the mother affected survival. We found that juvenile porcupines (14 individuals observed on 299 occasions) selected high protective cover (microhabitat scale) within areas with low herb cover (local scale). Use of cover partly depended on weather, with use of dens decreasing on sunny and warm days but use of cover outside of the den being independent of meteorological conditions. Ten juveniles died during the study and 90% of deaths were due to predation. Use of microhabitats with high protective cover and use of sites with high shrub cover at the local scale enhanced survival. We found no effect on survival of sex, body mass, mobility, and distance to the mother. These results demonstrate that use of cover was crucial to survival in a system where predation was the main limiting factor, and that predation risk was modulated by habitat use of juveniles.
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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 | 0.000 | 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) | 0.002 | 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".