Diet and energetic constraints of an earthworm specialist, the Mesa Central Blotched Garter Snake (<i>Thamnophis scaliger</i>)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Optimal diet theory predicts that predators optimize energy intake by balancing costs and benefits of foraging. One extreme strategy of snake foraging ecology is shown by specialist species that forage on low-energy prey, such as Thamnophis scaliger (Jan, 1863) which feeds almost exclusively on earthworms. Compared with other prey types such as small mammals, lizards, or arthropods, earthworms are low-energy prey because of their small size and high water content. Given the importance of energy acquisition for fueling snake reproduction, we expect that a low-energy dietary specialist such as T. scaliger needs to forage frequently to store enough fat to reproduce. The high frequency of snakes containing prey, the presence of multiple earthworms in snakes, and the fact that females continue to feed when gravid suggest that T. scaliger is a voracious consumer of earthworms. Despite these foraging behaviours, females did not reproduce in sequential years, suggesting constraints in energy input to reproduce more frequently. A meta-analysis of the diet, body size, and reproductive frequency of some species of the genus Thamnophis Fitzinger, 1843 confirms that consumption of invertebrate prey is associated with small snake size, but not with biennial reproductive frequency within the genus.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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) | 0.001 | 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".