The effect of sudden aspen decline on understory microclimate and vegetation in southwestern Colorado
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Sudden aspen decline (SAD), present in many parts of North America, is the sudden dieback of branches, crown loss, and rapid mortality of aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.). We surveyed 21 plots in southwestern Colorado and categorized each plot by the mean percentage of recent crown loss (RCL) into three SAD levels: low SAD (0%–25% RCL), moderate SAD (25.1%–50% RCL), and high SAD (50.1%–100% RCL). Our research quantified the effects of SAD on microclimate and understory vegetation at the individual species and community level. Mean day surface, day subsurface, and night subsurface temperatures were warmer in high SAD stands than in low ones. High SAD stands had lower soil moisture, lower litter and duff depth, higher bare soil cover, higher photosynthetically active radiation, higher arbuscular mycorrhizal propagule densities, and higher grass biomass. Indicator plant species were uniquely associated with low and high SAD. Our study illustrates that SAD has multiple ecological effects on aspen understories, including a potential positive feedback in which warmer temperatures and decreased soil moisture, consequences of SAD, may lead to increased branch dieback and tree mortality, which would alter microclimate-making conditions more favorable to SAD and escalate the effects of SAD on understory vegetation.
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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 | 0.001 | 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 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".