Genetic variation and dispersal ecology of the lichen Erioderma pedicellatum in Newfoundland: recommendations for management of a globally rare species
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Erioderma pedicellatum (Hue) P.M. Jørg is a globally rare and critically endangered lichen largely confined to the island portion of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2002 the Boreal population was designated under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) as a species of "Special Concern", while the Atlantic population was listed as "Endangered". Under the provincial Endangered Species Act the lichen was designated as a "Vulnerable" species. This designation does not provide immediate protection for the lichen but requires the development of a management plan and periodic status assessment. Essential management baseline information on the species is lacking; especially on the ecology of the species as well as levels of genetic variability. This project attempts to answer key questions about the dispersal ecology of E. pedicellatum and identifies markers for analysis of genetic variation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Using the Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS-I) of the ribosomal DNA (rDNA), two haplotypes were found among samples from Newfoundland and a single 62-year-old Swedish herbarium specimen. The common haplotype was found in both the Newfoundland samples and the Swedish sample. In addition through field research, this study describes for the first time the micro-ornamentation on the surface of E. pedicellatum spores and concludes through laboratory studies that the minute E. pedicellatum spores are actively discharged (<10 mm), can become trapped on the leg bristles or antennae of flying insects and may therefore be carried individually by these small animals. Given the high probability of an insect landing on an E. pedicellatum thallus and the shear abundance of insects in the boreal forest, our hypothesis of insects as dispersal vectors of spores is possible. We predict the potential number of insects carrying E. pedicellatum spores to be in the range of 129-161 over a 15 year period, given the calculated probability of insects landing on thalli, 4000-5000 incidences. This has important implications for forest management in E. pedicellatum habitat and further research should build on these findings by testing maximum distances spores travel in the average gap sizes of the Avalon forests, the periodicity of dispersal, and implementing harvesting /cutting block sizes to test the dispersal limitation of the species. These findings should be compared to the genetic variation of the species. This is the first study documenting the genetic variation of this rare species and the results provide significant, important information on the global population. We conclude that given the low genetic variation and the lack of variation between North American and European populations, that the global population is one evolutionary unit. This supports the IUCN designation of a globally endangered population.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 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".