A review of the threats to adult survival for swallows (Family: Hirundinidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Capsule: For declining migratory birds, including many aerial insectivores, such as swallows, there is evidence that adult survival is a demographic process with strong effects on population trends.Aims: The aim was to identify and quantify the effect of threats affecting adult survival and potentially driving population declines for five well-studied swallow species: Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica, Cliff Swallow Petrochelidon pyrrhonota, Tree Swallow Tachycineta bicolor, Sand Martin Riparia riparia, and Purple Martin Progne subis.Methods: We reviewed the literature to identify the threats to adult survival, quantified the magnitude of the effect and identified whether threats had a direct or indirect effect on survival.Results: We identified habitat change, weather, competition, incidental loss, contaminants, insect availability, disease, and predation as threats to adult survival in swallows, although for many of these threats there was limited information to quantify their impact. However, weather, particularly cold snaps and precipitation, had negative effects on survival for many populations of four species, either directly or indirectly through effects on insect availability. When there was a relationship, weather was associated with a 13–53% decrease in survival.Conclusion: Based on the available research, weather conditions throughout the annual cycle is a key threat to adult survival for several swallow species. However, future research on the threats to these species should consider examining the effect of insect availability and the effect of threats during the non-breeding period on survival. Finally, we suggest that new research should be devoted to understanding the importance of adult survival for declining bird populations.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
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".