Temporal Patterns of Predation of Duck Nests in the Canadian Prairies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In 1995 we deployed 800 simulated nests equipped with nest mortality timers to assess temporal patterns of predation of duck nests in the Canadian prairies. Timers recorded 470 predation events (70% of 672 depredated nests). Predation was nonrandom throughout the day, with a peak occurring between 00:00 and 06:00. Coyote (Canis latrans) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) depredated nests at similar times (mean 18:32 and 22:42, respectively), whereas mean depredation time was significantly later for striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis, 02:08). We failed to detect a difference in depredation interval for neighboring nests destroyed by striped skunk (median = 62 h 18 min, n = 15) vs. pairs of nests depredated by different species (red fox-skunk, skunk-coyote and coyote-red fox, median depredation interval = 123 h 1 min, n = 6). Simultaneous observation of radio-marked skunks revealed that skunks spent 2–25 min at simulated nests and became inactive after nest destruction in ca. 50% of cases. Based on observations of striped skunk behavior and nest-timer data, we suggest that density-dependent nest predation is caused by increased patch use rather than area-restricted search.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| 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".