Timing of pair formation and male acquisition of alternate plumage by three wintering dabbling ducks
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Pair formation in ducks is thought to be influenced by the acquisition of breeding plumage, the occurrence of courtship display, or both. We examined the frequency of pair formation in Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca carolinensis), and Northern Shoveler (Spatula clypeata) in the central valley of California in relation to the frequencies of male attainment of breeding plumage and courtship display. Predictions related to two hypotheses are: (1) the timing of pair formation is directly related to the attainment of breeding (definitive alternate) plumage by males, and (2) frequencies of courtship display are highest during pair formation. Most female Mallard were paired by the end of October, with >80% in pairs by early December. Of Northern Shoveler, 90% were paired by early January and 90% of female Green-winged Teal were paired by early February. The highest rates of courtship display by Mallard were observed during October through November, by Northern Shoveler in November, and by Green-winged Teal in November through January. Courtship display was, therefore, relatively frequent at the same time as pair formation for all three species. Northern Shoveler spent less time in courtship display than the other two species. Most (90%) male Mallard had acquired alternate plumage by mid-November, Northern Shoveler by early February, and Green-winged Teal by mid-December. Thus, timing of pair formation coincided with timing of attainment of breeding plumage in Mallard and Green-winged Teal but not Northern Shoveler.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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".