Spatial and temporal variation in spring diet of greater snow geese inferred from stable isotopes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Changes in diet or habitat use due to seasonal variations in food availability or anthropogenic activity can impact nutrient storage during migration. We assessed the diet of spring staging greater snow geese in Québec ( Anser caerulescens atlantica (Kennard, 1927)) at sites characterized by different habitats, and determined whether the diet changed over a 25-year period (1999–2001 vs. 2021–2024). We analyzed stable isotopes ( 13 C and 15 N) in goose muscles, liver and abdominal fat, and food plants. Isotopes allowed determination of the goose diet although discrimination between marsh plants ( Schoenoplectus and Spartina) and some plants consumed in farmlands was poor. Corn dominated the diet at Lac-St-Pierre but decreased as geese moved to other sites later during staging. In the Upper St. Lawrence estuary, Schoenoplectus, legumes (clover and alfalfa), and corn were the most consumed items. In the lower estuary, diet was difficult to assess reliably. Annual variations in the diet were large and showed little temporal change over 25 years except for a possible reduction in Schoenoplectus and increase in legumes. We also detected an enrichment in 15 N of food sources during that period. Our results show that goose diet is flexible in response to environmental changes and anthropogenic disturbance during staging.
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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 | 0.001 | 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) | 0.001 | 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".