Predation, reoccupation, cannibalism, and scavenging? Records of small mammals in arctic ground squirrel middens from east Beringia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Faunal remains from fossil arctic ground squirrel (Urocitellus parryii) middens provide insight into the composition of small mammal communities during the late Pleistocene of Yukon Territory. We evaluated skeletal remains present in 88 of 249 middens in addition to fecal remains from fourteen sites across the Klondike goldfields. Two temporally distinct populations of U. parryii middens were identified from middens in association with Dawson tephra (~30,000 yr B.P.) and Sheep Creek Klondike tephra (~80,000 yr B.P.) containing the remains of arctic ground squirrels, voles (Microtus sp. M. longicaudus, M. miurus, M. xanthognathus), collared lemmings (Dicrostonyx sp. D. groenlandicus), true lemmings (Lemmus sp.), birds (Indet. Aves), and larger unidentified bones. These remains provide a unique look into the fossorial life histories of U. parryii and other small mammals of eastern Beringia within an established chronological framework. We interpret that the assemblages could represent reoccupation of middens by arvicolines or that arvicolines fell prey to hungry arctic ground squirrels and/or were incorporated into the middens as a result of opportunistic scavenging. The presence of bird bones and indeterminate bones larger than arctic ground squirrels indicates that the scavenging behavior observed in modern arctic ground squirrel populations occurred in ancient populations.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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".