The <i><scp>B</scp>eothukis</i>/<i><scp>C</scp>ulmofrons</i> problem and its bearing on <scp>E</scp>diacaran macrofossil taxonomy: evidence from an exceptional new fossil locality
Why this work is in the frame
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract The late E diacaran siliciclastic successions of eastern N ewfoundland, C anada, are renowned for their fossils of soft‐bodied macro‐organisms, which may include some of the earliest animals. Despite the potential importance of such fossils for evolutionary understanding, the taxonomic framework within which E diacaran macrofossils are described is not clearly defined. Rangeomorphs from a newly discovered fossil surface on the B onavista P eninsula, Newfoundland, require us to reconsider contemporary use of morphological characters to distinguish between genera and species within E diacaran taxa. The new surface exhibits remarkable preservational fidelity, resolving features smaller than 0.1 mm in dimension in both frondose and non‐frondose taxa. Such preservation permits the recognition of rarely observed fourth‐ and fifth‐order rangeomorph branching, offering unparalleled opportunities to investigate the fine‐scale construction of rangeomorph taxa including C ulmofrons plumosa Laflamme et al ., 2012. Our observations enable resolution of taxonomic issues relating to rangeomorphs, specifically overlap between the diagnoses of the frondose genera B eothukis Brasier and Antcliffe, 2009 and C ulmofrons . We propose a taxonomic framework for all E diacaran macrofossils whereby gross architecture, the presence/absence of discrete morphological characters and consideration of growth programme are used to distinguish genera, whereas morphometric or continuous characters define taxa at the species level. On the basis of its morphological characters, C ulmofrons plumosa is herein synonymized to a species ( B eothukis plumosa comb. nov.) within the genus B eothukis . This discussion emphasizes the need to standardize the taxonomic approach used to describe E diacaran macrofossil taxa at both the genus and species levels, and raises important considerations for future formulation of higher‐level taxonomic groups.
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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 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| 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 it