High Rates of Conspecific Brood Parasitism and Egg Rejection in Coots and Moorhens in Ephemeral Wetlands in Namibia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Conspecific brood parasitism (CBP) is not as easy to detect as interspecific brood parasitism, but field studies that involve careful nest monitoring and behavioral observation during the laying period have indicated that CBP may be more common and widespread than previously thought (Yom-Tov 1980, Andersson 1984, MacWhirter 1989, Lyon 1993a). For example, relatively high levels of CBP have been found in American Coots (Fulica americana; Arnold 1987, Lyon 1993a) and Common Moorhens (Gallinula chloropus; Gibbons 1986, McRae 1995). In addition, the above species sometimes respond to parasitism by either deserting their nest (moorhens) or selectively burying the parasitic egg (coots). Presumably, these host responses evolved because of increased fitness costs resulting from attempting to raise parasitic offspring (Yom-Tov 1980, Andersson 1984). We studied unmarked migratory populations of Red-knobbed Coots (Fulica cristata) and Lesser Moorhens (Gallinula angulata) in an ephemeral wetland in Namibia, Africa; CBP had not been previously recorded in either of these species. Yearly rainfall in the area is extremely variable and unpredictable, but when heavy rains occur and pans and surrounding grasslands become flooded, many wetland species of birds arrive within days of flooding (Hines 1993, Simmons et al. 1999). Wetland areas with a combination of deep water (>1 m) and vegetative cover are limited (R. Simmons pers. obs.); hence, the synchronized arrival and subsequent high density of birds may result in a shortage of available nesting sites. Nest predation is also thought to be high during years of heavy rainfall because of the presence of numerous egg predators such as monitors, snakes, and jackals (J. Mendelsohn pers. comm.). Shortages of nest sites and high rates of nest predation have been associated with increased frequency of CBP (Yom-Tov 1980, McRae 1997a).
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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 | 0.000 | 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 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".