Keratinized Nuptial Spines Are Used for Male Combat in the Emei Moustache Toad ( Leptobrachium boringii)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We describe the natural history and reproductive behaviour of the Emei Moustache Toad (Leptobrachium boringii) with an emphasis on the development of keratinized nuptial spines in males and document combat behaviour for the first time in this species. Between February and March of 2011, 19 female and 43 male L. boringii from Mount Emei UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sichuan, China were observed throughout the breeding season. This species exhibits male-biased sexual size dimorphism (SSD) with limited evidence of paternal care (nest guarding by males). Prior to the breeding season males grow 10 - 16 keratinized spines on their upper lip, which fall off once the season has ended. Throughout the breeding season males construct and defend aquatic nests where they produce advertisement calls to attract females. During this time we documented 14 cases involving a total of 22 males where males used their moustaches for aggressive interaction. Combat typically occurred at the beginning of the season when males would compete for a limited number of available nest sites. Neither male body size, nor body condition significantly affects the outcome of an aggressive interaction, suggesting that size may not be the only factor influencing an individual's chance of victory. Our evidence for male competition and aggression, along with observed paternal care are potential mechanisms to explain the evolution of male-biased SSD observed in this species.
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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 | 0.001 |
| 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 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".