Osteoderm accretion as proxy for whole body growth in the American alligator (1161.3)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Osteoderms are small bones found in the dermal layer of sauropsid scales, form an integral part of integumental armour and may participate in thermoregulation. Whether growth of osteoderms parallels that of the whole animal has not yet been ascertained. We studied histomorphometry of cervical osteoderms of juvenile female American alligator ( Alligator mississippiensis ) reared at 30°C on ad libitum diet. All animals had undergone a cardiac surgical procedure, which either rendered their circulatory system in‐series (experimental n=24) or retained the original in‐parallel design (sham n=36). In addition, animals were assigned to one of three exercise groups: sedentary, running or swimming (n=20 each) for 18 months. Body mass and length measurements were taken every other week, and animals received injections of fluorescent dyes (calcein, alizarin) during the growth period. We found a positive correlation (ANCOVA, p<0.01) between periosteal bone deposition in osteoderms and body growth. Neither surgical manipulation nor exercise had a statistically significant effect on this relationship. We propose annular growth lines in osteoderms can be used as part of non‐lethal methodology to track growth in populations of wild crocodilians. Further, osteoderm histology can inform our understanding of growth trajectories in extinct archosaurs, regardless of their cardiovascular design or activity patterns.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 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".