Individual and Resource-Dependent Variation in Ability to Lay Supranormal Clutches in Response to Egg Removal
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract We investigated individual and resource-dependent variation in ability of female Zebra Finches (Taeniopygia guttata) to lay supranormal clutches in response to egg removal, and effect of continuous laying on (1) egg composition and (2) plasma yolk precursor levels. Egg removal significantly increased the number of eggs that individual females laid, but that response was diet-dependent: on a high-quality (egg-supplemented) diet, females laid 12.4 ± 1.0 more eggs compared with their pretreatment clutch size; whereas on the low-quality (seed-only) diet, females laid only 4.9 ± 1.2 more eggs. Removal clutch size (i.e. total number of eggs laid in response to egg removal) was positively correlated with pretreatment mean egg mass and clutch size on the low-quality diet, but not on the high-quality diet. That suggests that there is interindividual variation in egg-laying ability (“large-egg” females had a greater capacity to respond to egg removal than “small-egg” females), but that higher resource levels can overcome individual differences. Egg mass did not vary with laying sequence in supra-normal clutches (up to 22 eggs); however, there was a significant decrease (6%) in yolk protein content of additional eggs that was apparent by the tenth egg laid (i.e. only 4–5 more than the normal clutch size). Plasma levels of the two yolk precursors, vitellogenin and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), were independent of diet and did not differ in individual birds at the 1 egg stage versus the 14 egg stage. However, there was a systematic change in relationship between yolk lipid content and plasma VLDL levels, from nonsignificant for third-laid eggs to significant and positive for sixteenth-laid eggs. We propose a possible mechanism linking female condition and egg-laying ability: good quality females, capable of laying extended clutches, are able to maintain production of generic VLDL for their own metabolic needs, as well as producing yolk-targeted VLDL, whereas poor quality females are not.
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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 | 0.000 | 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 | 0.000 |
| 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".