Benthic algal biomass — measurement and errorsThis paper is part of the series “Forty Years of Aquatic Research at the Experimental Lakes Area”.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
While benthic algal biomass is one of the most commonly measured variables within littoral communities, it is also one of the most poorly characterized. The use of chlorophyll a as an estimate of biomass, while easy and inexpensive, can be affected by changes in environmental conditions and algal community composition. Biovolume-based measurements often have high variability and are affected by changes in cell volume due to preservation. Using 12 years of data from the Experimental Lakes Area (northwestern Ontario, Canada) as well as short-term surveys and experimental studies from the Experimental Lakes Area and the Canadian Rocky Mountains, we demonstrate that biovolume and chlorophyll a are often decoupled in the littoral zone of temperate oligotrophic lakes. We recommend that researchers revisit the limitations of both metrics and specifically caution against the use of chlorophyll a as a biomass indicator when light, temperature, or species composition vary significantly.
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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 | 0.021 | 0.039 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
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".