Effects of ectoparasites on seasonal variation in quality of nestling Tree Swallows (<i>Tachycineta</i> <i>bicolor</i>)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Reproductive success often declines with breeding date in diverse taxa, including temperate-nesting bird species. The date hypothesis predicts that seasonally deteriorating environmental quality drives this pattern. While mechanisms are not fully understood, a seasonal increase in parasitism may contribute to the declining quality of nestlings hatched later in the season. We examined the effect of ectoparasites on seasonal variation in indices of nestling quality and survival in Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor (Vieillot, 1808)) at breeding sites in British Columbia (PG) and Saskatchewan (SDNRA). In a parasite removal experiment, we detected no seasonal trend in flea abundance and, contrary to expectation, there were fewer blow flies in nests of late breeders. Negative effects of parasites on nestlings were documented at PG, where lengths of primary feather and head–bill were affected. Parental, rather than environmental, quality had the greatest effect on reproductive success at PG, as nestling survival declined seasonally regardless of treatment and despite seasonally increasing food biomass. Nestlings in control (i.e., parasitized) nests at SDNRA had elevated feather corticosterone levels, but no other effects of parasites were detected possibly because parent birds were of higher quality or parents and offspring had greater access to food such that nestlings were capable of coping with parasite-related challenges.
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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 | 0.000 | 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".