Nested PCR detection of microscopic life-stages of laminarian macroalgae and comparison with adult forms along intertidal height gradients
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Recruitment of kelp species (Laminariales) to rocky marine habitats relies on the prior establishment of microscopic life-stages (zoospores, gametophytes, gametes and microscopic sporophytes). Unlike macroscopic sporophyte stages of kelp, microscopic life-stages have proved difficult to detect and identify in their natural habitat. Using a species-specific PCR-based assay, we developed a method to detect putative microscopic life-stages of 2 northeast Pacific kelp species, Nereocystis luetkeana (Mertens) Postels et Ruprecht and Hedophyllum sessile (C. Agardh) Setchell, from rocky intertidal substrate samples. Species-specific primers were evaluated for specificity and sensitivity. Comparisons of nested and unnested PCR were performed for both species. Nested PCR was used to screen for target species present on rocks obtained along an intertidal height gradient (0.0 to 3.5 m Lowest Low Water [LLW]) from 2 sites at monthly intervals in summer 2005. Vertical distribution patterns of the putative microscopic life-stages and the macroscopic sporophyte form were compared at both sites. Putative microscopic life-stages of N. luetkeana were detected at both sites and displayed a widespread vertical distribution with no clear spatial or temporal relationship. In comparison, H. sessile putative microscopic life-stage distribution was much more spatially restricted, showing a similar distribution to the macroscopic sporophyte. This study demonstrates the sensitivity, specificity and validity of utilizing molecular techniques to describe the distribution of microscopic life-stages of certain kelp species.
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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 | 0.000 | 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 | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| 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 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".