Avian Predation in a Declining Outbreak Population of the Spruce Budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The impact of avian predation on a declining population of the spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumifereana (Clem.), was measured using single-tree exclosure cages in a mature stand of balsam fir, Abies balsamea (L.), and white spruce, Picea glauca (Moench.) Voss. Bird population censuses and observations of foraging and nest-feeding activity were also made to determine the response of budworm-linked warblers to decreasing food availability. Seasonal patterns of foraging. as well as foraging success in the declining prey population was compared to similar information from birds observed in another stand where the spruce budworm population was rising. Avian predation was an important source of mortality between the 4th instar and moth emergence in the declining outbreak population. Mortality by predation increased from negligible to over 98% as budworm density dropped from 100 to <1 larva/kg of host foliage, over 3 years. Calculations based on nest-feeding activity and basic metabolic demands support these observed rates. Seasonal and yearly differences in predation rates observed between the two host-tree species correspond to equivalent shifts in bird foraging behavior in response to dropping insect density. In particular, a preference for searching on white spruce disappeared, although budworm-linked birds remained more efficient at finding food on this plant. The ability to change foraging behavior as prey density dropped differed between bird species.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| 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 | 0.001 |
| 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) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".