BREEDING BIOLOGY OF WHITE-EARED GROUND-SPARROWS (MELOZONE LEUCOTIS), WITH A DESCRIPTION OF A NEW NEST TYPE
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We provide the first detailed description of the breeding biology of White-eared Groundsparrows (Melozone leucotis), a little-studied Neotropical songbird that inhabits thickets in Central America. Based on eight years of data collected from populations in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, we describe White-eared Ground-sparrows' nests, eggs, nest parasitism, parental behavior, and breeding phenology. Nests conformed to one of two general types: (1) a bulky structure of plant fibres with a coarse outer layer and a fine inner layer; and (2) a smaller, simpler structure made up of a platform of thin plant fibres placed on top of rocks. Nest of the former type were located in vegetation near the ground, whereas the latter type were constructed directly on the ground. This is the first description of the second nest type. Eggs had a white background with variable brown spotting. Eggs were laid in clutches of two or three. Parasitism by Bronzed Cowbirds (Molothrus aeneus) was severe; five often nests were parasitized, including two that were multiply parasitized with 6 and 7 cowbird eggs. Only females were observed incubating the eggs, but both sexes provisioned nestlings; only females were observed provisioning fledglings while males assisted in locating food. This species has a long breeding season, begins in March (late dry season), and continues until September (late rainy season). We provide the first formal description of the breeding behaviour of White-eared Ground-sparrows, from a genus of birds whose behaviour is poorly known in the tropics. © The Neotropical Ornithological Society.
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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 | 0.000 | 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".