Oviposition substrate preferences of two endangered prairie butterflies in an ex situ conservation environment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Dakota skipper Hesperia dacotae and the Poweshiek skipperling Oarisma poweshiek (Hesperiidae) are imperiled univoltine prairie obligate butterflies native to the north-central USA and southern Canada, and ex situ conservation strategies have been identified as important tools for their recovery. Understanding the reproductive behaviors of these taxa is crucial for maximizing their reproductive potential and the efficacy of these conservation activities. It is generally assumed that, within Lepidoptera, females preferentially oviposit on substrates that are most suitable for the development of their offspring, but this has been shown to not always be true. Here, we examined whether Dakota skipper and Poweshiek skipperling females exhibited oviposition substrate preferences for 3 potential larval host graminoids: prairie dropseed Sporobolus heterolepis, tussock sedge Carex stricta, and smooth brome Bromus inermis. Our results suggest that, at least in an ex situ setting, Dakota skippers and Poweshiek skipperlings preferentially oviposit on graminoids over abiotic substrates, and both taxa demonstrate a stronger preference for prairie dropseed over tussock sedge and smooth brome. These results will better inform continued ex situ management and have important in situ implications, as these skippers may oviposit on invasive grasses (i.e. smooth brome in our experiment) despite the presence of more suitable host plants.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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 | 0.000 |
| 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".