Mosquito and Oestrid Fly Harassment of Barren-Ground Caribou: Environmental Predictors and Caribou Responses
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Arctic climate is changing quickly relative to the rest of the world. Understanding how this change will affect ecological relationships, particularly those involving large ungulate behavior and health, is needed to effectively manage traditional food sources for northern communities in the future. Harassment by blood-sucking mosquitoes (Aedes spp., Culex spp., Culiseta spp.) and parasitic oestrid flies (Cephenemyia trompe and Hypoderma tarandi; commonly referred to as bot flies and warble flies, respectively) is a known driver of the behavior and health of recently declining North American barren-ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus) populations. Our understanding of insect-environment relationships and caribou responses to harassment in a changing environment is limited. This thesis provides an in-depth ecological analysis of i) environmental predictors of mosquito and oestrid fly harassment and ii) the relative responses of the barren-ground Porcupine Caribou Herd to harassing insects in Northwestern Canada and Alaska, USA. In Chapter 3 of this thesis, I model observed harassment by mosquitoes and oestrid flies in relation to remotely sensed weather, habitat, and topographic variables with the aim of developing improved insect indices. Mosquito harassment was correlated to wind speed, temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, snowmelt, and topographic position. Oestrid fly harassment was correlated to temperature, growing degree day, and time of day. I hindcasted the mosquito and oestrid fly indices as far back as 1950 and found predicted oestrid fly harassment advanced phenologically and intensified over time. Incorporation of additional explanatory variables into insect harassment indices facilitates better predictions and the use of remotely sensed variables enables the ability to remotely predict insect harassment across time and space. In Chapter 4 of this thesis, I relate caribou insect avoidance behavior documented using video collars to observed and modeled mosquito and oestrid fly harassment. Caribou responded to increased mosquito harassment by traveling farther and moving more directionally, likely increasing energy expenditure. Caribou responded to oestrid fly harassment by selecting barren relief habitat over forage habitat, moving less directionally, exhibiting avoidance behaviors more frequently, and foraging less, likely decreasing energy intake. These avoidance strategies reveal the relative behavioral and energetic consequences of mosquito and oestrid fly harassment on barren-ground caribou. Collectively, this thesis presents environmental correlates of insect harassment as tools for future research and management to effectively estimate harassment remotely and reveals key differences in behavioral responses of barren-ground caribou to mosquito and oestrid fly harassment. The ecological relationships identified in this thesis highlight how climate change impacts barren-ground caribou, a traditional food source for northern communities, through harassing insects
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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 | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 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".