Social Monogamy in Kit Foxes: Formation, Association, Duration, and Dissolution of Mated Pairs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Social monogamy is characterized by long-term pair-bonds, but there is extensive variation among socially monogamous species in the timing of pair formation, the extent to which pair-mates associate throughout the year, the duration of pair-bonds, and the frequency with which pair-bonds are dissolved while both partners are living. We studied these aspects of social monogamy in kit foxes (Vulpes macrotis) at 1 urban and 2 nonurban sites. Behavior was similar across sites despite differences in ecological conditions. Pair formation occurred throughout the year, often within a month after the loss of a mate. Pair-mates associated throughout the year. Some pairs remained associated for more than 1 breeding season. Death of a pair-mate was the most common reason for the dissolution of a pair (14 of 16 cases). Two pairs dissolved while both partners were still living: 1 due to abandonment by a male of his pair-mate and territory and 1 due to displacement of a male by another male. These characteristics of social monogamy in kit foxes may be related to year-round territoriality, and may optimize individual fitness by enhancing survival and ultimately reproductive success.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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) | 0.000 | 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".