Relative importance of kelps and fucoids as substrata of the invasive epiphytic bryozoan Membranipora membranacea in Nova Scotia, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The successful establishment of invasive species is partly dependent upon their ability to utilize effectively local resources available in the invaded ecosystem. In the rocky subtidal habitats of Nova Scotia, Canada, the invasive epifaunal bryozoan Membranipora membranacea occurs in high abundance on kelps, which offer high space availability but are highly dynamic. However, this bryozoan also occurs on algae other than kelps, including Fucus species, which provide low space availability but higher stability than kelp. Previous research has focussed on population dynamics of the bryozoan on kelps, and the role of fucoids remains unknown. We quantified settlers and colony cover of M. membranacea on the kelps Saccharina latissima and Laminaria digitata (both native), and on Fucus evanescens (native) and F. serratus (introduced), at 4 sites in Nova Scotia, at various stages critical to the population dynamics of the bryozoan. The relative importance of kelp and fucoid substrata varied both intra-and interannually, as well as spatially. Settlement was higher on kelps than on Fucus spp. at sites where kelps were abundant; however, the abundance of settlers on Fucus spp. was similar to or greater than that on kelps at sites where kelps were sparse or spatially separated from Fucus spp. During the period of high colony cover in late autumn, cover was highest on L. digitata and lowest on Fucus spp. across all sites. After the winter, M. membranacea cover decreased by an order of magnitude on kelps, but remained stable on Fucus spp., suggesting high overwinter survival on fucoid algae. While kelps provide spatial resources for seasonal peaks in abundance of the invasive bryozoan, refuges can preserve local populations at certain times. For example, Fucus spp. provides an important refuge for overwintering colonies, particularly where defoliation of kelps has been extensive, and characteristics of this substratum probably facilitate early reproduction and local spread. Understanding the role of different components of an invaded ecosystem in the population dynamics of the introduced species can invoke possible mechanisms of successful establishment, spread and persistence.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
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 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 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".