Biology and taxonomy of encrusting alcyoniid soft corals in the northeastern Pacific Ocean with descriptions of two new genera (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Octocorallia)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. In this paper we summarize current knowledge of the distribution, ecology, and reproductive biology of 4 encrusting species in the soft coral family Alcyoniidae, with descriptions of 2 new genera and 2 new species. The new genus Discophyton is erected for Alcyonium rudyi, a species common in the lower intertidal of exposed rocky headlands from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada south to Point Lobos, California, USA. Discophyton rudyi n. gen. & n. comb. propagates extensively by clonal fission, giving rise to characteristic aggregations of small, regularly spaced, disc‐shaped colonies. We describe 2 new species and place them in a new genus, Thrombophyton. Thrombophyton coronatum n. gen. & n. sp. forms irregularly shaped, membranous colonies on rock surfaces; it occurs subtidally along the southern California coast from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to San Diego and on the California Islands. Thrombophyton trachydermum n. gen. & n. sp. has a similar, membranous growth form; it occurs both intertidally and subtidally on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, and in the San Juan Archipelago, Washington, and intertidally in central California, USA. Alcyonium pacificum, reported for the first time from North American waters, occurs in subtidal kelp beds around the Aleutian islands of Attu and Adak; its mushroom‐shaped colonies are raised above the substrate on a short stalk. D. rudyi, T. trachydermum, and A. pacificum are all gonochores that reproduce in late summer; in contrast, T. coronatum appears to reproduce in the spring. D. rudyi and T. coronatum brood larvae internally to a late planula stage. A key to species is presented for all shallow‐water soft corals known to occur in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.
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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 | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| 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".