The spatial ecology of Ontario’s only lizard, the five-lined skink, reveals a link between habitat selection, abundance, mating systems, and body size
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Reptiles are among the most endangered vertebrates in Canada because their distribution is limited by temperature and it overlaps with our largest human populations. Patterns of habitat selection and distribution reveal information about the interactions and environmental characteristics that are most important for survival. Habitat selection, distribution, and body size of Ontario’s only lizard species, the five-lined skink, at the northern limit of its range provides strong support for three ecological theories that predict range limits, mating systems, and body size. First, at high latitudes, reptiles are limited by the availability of suitable temperatures early in the spring and in the fall. Topography and vegetation cover are the greatest predictors of temperature and therefore, the greatest predictors of the distribution and abundance of five-lined skinks. This supports the concept that abiotic (non-living) factors have the strongest influence on species range limits at high latitudes. Second, uneven distribution of sites with suitable temperatures result in uneven distribution of skinks. Areas with high concentrations of skinks create conditions that favour polygamy, a mating system characterized by both males and females mating with more than one individual in the same season. Third, polygamous mating systems are good predictors of differences in body size between males and females and a predictable pattern of body size variation as latitude increases. Knowledge of the environmental variables that limit species range, abundance, and mating systems provides great insight for the conservation of endangered reptile species at high latitudes.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 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".