In the cold and near the edge: Hypoxia tolerance, seasonal site fidelity, and communal hibernation in a peripheral population of wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Herein, I examine two aspects of overwintering ecology of wood turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) in Nova Scotia, Canada. The research was conducted in a region that supports a large population of G. insculpta despite being located near the northeastern edge of the species' range. Using radio telemetry, I monitored turtles across two consecutive winters to investigate microhabitat properties that are critical to hibernation in G. insculpta. The sample population overwintered in a range of habitats; some different from those reported elsewhere in the species' range. Conventionally, wood turtles rely on highly oxygenated rivers, and have been previously described as hypoxia-intolerant. Data from this study indicate that wood turtles are capable of surviving dormancy in hypoxic oxbows. Accordingly, I propose that G. insculpta is a hypoxia-tolerant species, and further hypothesize that a diversification of overwintering strategies may allow the local population to adapt to environmental stochasticity associated with life at the edge of the species' range. I also examined communal hibernation and seasonal site fidelity and show the first known accounts of male-female congregating, mating, and synchronized spring emergence in G. insculpta, and suggest that communal hibernation is linked to increased mating opportunities. Using historical telemetry data for a subsample of mutual turtles, long-term patterns in seasonal site fidelity revealed that among adult females, differing life history strategies may exist. Although migratory females are often viewed as outliers by decision makers, the survival and genetic contribution of these 'risk takers' may be critical to local populations, and ultimately effect evolution of the species. Above all, the findings have implications for conservation in that they warrant a new definition of critical overwintering habitats for G. insculpta, and highlight why the dismissal of outlying seasonal movement data can result in inadequate protection of corridors between hibernacula and nesting sites.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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) | 0.000 | 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".