Re-evaluating niche conservatism versus divergence in the Woodland Salamander genus <i>Plethodon</i>: a case study of the parapatric members of the <i>Plethodon glutinosus</i> species complex
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Woodland Salamander genus Plethodon Tschudi, 1838, consists of terrestrial lungless salamanders, has been cited as an exemplar of a lineage characterized by niche conservatism. This conclusion has contributed to broader hypotheses dealing with the role of niche conservatism in speciation and the maintenance of species diversity. We re-evaluated these salamanders using newly published techniques designed to detect niche conservatism versus niche divergence using computer-based niche modeling and spatial analysis within a phylogenetic framework. We specifically studied parapatric neighbors in the species complex of Plethodon glutinosus (Green, 1818) to determine if there is evidence of a role for niche divergence at speciation or if niche conservatism characterizes the complex as has been reported for the larger genus. We found that new statistical approaches yield different results from earlier work, suggesting that niche divergence has been a much more important player in the speciation process than has heretofore been understood. Although different parts of the overall Plethodon phylogeny may be characterized by different rates of niche evolution, the rapidly burgeoning area of research centered on niche conservatism appears to be in a state of flux with regards to methods that give consistently repeatable results.
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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 | 0.003 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| 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".