Effect of diluted bitumen on the survival, physiology, and behavior of the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) and relevance to birds of the Salish Sea
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Given the ongoing and potential increases in shipment of diluted bitumen (dilbit) out of the port of Vancouver, there is a need for toxicity data to assess the impact of catastrophic dilbit spillage on wildlife, particularly in the Salish Sea. Peer reviewed literature on dilbit toxicity is limited to teleost fish, despite the importance of coastal waters as habitat for a diverse bird fauna, including listed species. In this study we used the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) as a tractable, avian model system for preliminary studies on Cold Lake blend dilbit. Objectives were to 1) determine appropriate methods of establishing dilbit toxicity to birds, 2) determine a range of lethal and sublethal doses, and 3) obtain meaningful physiological and behavioural endpoints. We conducted three 14-day exposure trials resulting in a LD100 (lethal dose resulting in 100% mortality) at 12 milliliters per kilogram body weight day (ml/kg bw day) and a LD50 (lethal dose resulting in 50% mortality) at 10 ml/kg bw day. Mortality was associated with significant mass loss, external oiling, increased non-enzymatic antioxidant capacity in plasma, and pectoral muscle wasting. In addition, we found evidence for sub-lethal effects at dilbit doses less than 10 ml/kg, such as elevated hepatic EROD activity. Further sub-lethal effects include changes in activity behaviours of treated birds on day 6 such as increased sleeping and decreased self-maintenance behaviours such as preening. Surprisingly, we found no effect of dilbit on hematocrit or hemoglobin levels even though anemia is a common endpoint reported in conventional crude oil avian dosing studies.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
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 | 0.000 | 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 | 0.001 |
| 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".