A large herbivore triggers alternative successional trajectories in the boreal forest
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Alternative successional trajectories (AST) may result in multiple climax states within an ecosystem when disturbances affect colonization history. In the boreal forest, ungulates have been proposed to drive AST because, under herbivore pressure, preferred species may go extinct and apparent competition may benefit browsing-resistant species. Over a 15-year period following logging, we tested whether deer herbivory altered plant species composition and whether the competitive advantage of resistant species was maintained following herbivore removal. We compared exclosures built immediately after logging with delayed exclosures built eight years later on Anticosti Island, Quebec, Canada. Although the palatable tree Betula papyrifera (paper birch) and some palatable herbs recovered in delayed exclosures, we observed legacies in both tree and herb cover. Woody regeneration in delayed exclosures was dominated by Picea glauca (white spruce), and Poaceae (grasses) were abundant in the field layer. Given that only early-successional species recovered, whereas late-successional broadleaf species and Abies balsamea (balsam fir) remained rare, succession may follow an AST after a limited browsing period during early succession.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 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".