Assessing terrestrial lichen biomass using ecoforest maps: a suitable approach to plan conservation areas for forest-dwelling caribou
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Terrestrial lichens are an important part of the winter diet of forest-dwelling caribou ( Rangifer tarandus caribou (Gmelin, 1788)), and developing forest management guidelines to support high lichen biomass could enhance both individual- and population-level health of this threatened species. Our objective was to develop an index to assess terrestrial lichen biomass available to caribou at the landscape scale using ecoforest maps based on forest characteristics (age, density, and height) and geographical variables (slope, altitude, and latitude). We sampled 439 sites within 8340 km 2 of the spruce–moss domain located >100 km north of the Saguenay River (Quebec, Canada). Since they are known to support terrestrial lichen, we sampled only spruce-dominated stands older than 50 years, representing 41.8% of the study area. Using a two-step approach, we first modeled lichen occurrence and thereafter lichen biomass in sites where lichens were found. Lichen occurrence was positively correlated with latitude but negatively with stand age, height, and density. Lichen biomass was primarily a function of altitude and tree density. Using this index could prioritize conservation of areas that are most likely to contain high lichen biomass, thus favoring caribou population maintenance in logged landscapes.
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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 | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 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".