Microhabitat Selection by Prairie Rattlesnakes (<i>Crotalus viridis</i>) at the Northern Extreme of their Geographic Range
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Prairie Rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis) are a species of conservation concern in Canada because of suspected population declines. Data on the habitat selection of Prairie Rattlesnakes at northern range limits are essential to inform management strategies and implement recovery plans in Canada and other northern regions. We used radio-telemetry and generalized linear mixed models to create resource selection functions for Prairie Rattlesnakes (N = 23) in and around Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada. Eight habitat variables were compared between used and available sites to quantify microhabitat selection. We found that Prairie Rattlesnakes select for specific sites (i.e., within 1 m) with shrub cover and burrows and avoid bare ground. Shrub cover was two-times higher at used sites compared to available ones, while bare ground showed the opposite trend. In addition, two-thirds of all snake location points were within 1 m of a burrow, which suggests that retreat sites are important. None of the habitat variables measured at 10 m from used points were significant predictors of rattlesnake habitat selection, indicating that rattlesnakes select habitat at a very fine level. Northern range limits present a thermally challenging environment in which burrows and shrubs are likely crucial for thermoregulation. In addition, these retreat sites likely provide a prey source, protection from predators, and suitable areas for reproduction. Retreat sites such as burrows and shrubs are therefore critical components of habitat for Prairie Rattlesnakes and should be included in management strategies for the species.
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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 | 0.001 | 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 | 0.001 |
| 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".