Taxonomic fidelity of silicified filamentous microbes from hot-spring systems in the Taupo Volcanic Zone, North Island, New Zealand
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Modern, silica-precipitating hot springs, like those found in the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ) on the North Island of New Zealand, are natural laboratories for assessing microbial silicification. Many of the silicified microbes found in the siliceous sinters of these spring systems seem to be life-like replicas of the original microbes. Such preservation reflects the fact that many of the microbes are replaced and encrusted by opal-A before they are destroyed by desiccation and decay. The taxonomic fidelity of these silicified microbes depends on the preservation potential of those features which are needed to identify them. For example, identification of extant cyanobacteria, relies on as many as 37 different features, most of which are not preserved by silicification. In the hot-spring systems of the TVZ, characterisation of cyanobacteria which have been replaced and encrusted by opal-A is typically restricted to colony morphology, the length, diameter and morphology of the filament, and the presence/absence of septa, branching or a sheath. In many cases, description is limited to a subset of these parameters. Such a limited set of morphological characteristics severely impedes identifications in terms of extant taxa. The physical changes which accompany the stepwise diagenetic progression from opal-A to opal-CT ± opal-C to microcrystalline quartz may lead to further degradation of the silicified microbes and the loss of more taxonomically important features. Clearly, considerable care must be taken when trying to name silicified microorganisms and make palaeoenvironmental inferences.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| 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".