Long-term shifts in the species composition of a coastal fish community
Bibliographic record
Abstract
To study decadal shifts in a coastal nekton community, we analyzed data on 25 fish and invertebrate species collected from 1959 to 2005 by the University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography (Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA). This weekly trawl survey samples two locations: inside Narragansett Bay and in Rhode Island Sound. Over four decades, the community has shifted progressively from vertebrates to invertebrates and, especially since 1980, from benthic to pelagic species. Demersal species that declined include winter flounder ( Pseudopleuronectes americanus ), silver hake ( Merluccius bilinearis ), and red hake ( Urophycis chuss ); meanwhile warm-water fish (butterfish, Peprilus triacanthus ; scup, Stenotomus chrysops ) and invertebrates (lobster, crab, squid) increased with time. Total numbers reached a maximum in the 1990s, while mean body size decreased. Taxonomic diversity increased over time, as the community shifted from fish to invertebrates of several phyla. The shifts in species composition correlate most strongly with spring–summer sea surface temperature, which increased 1.6 °C over the 47-year time series. Species composition was also correlated with the winter North Atlantic Oscillation index and chlorophyll concentration, which has declined since the 1970s. Triggered primarily by rising temperatures, these decadal changes have altered the trophic structure of the nekton community, resulting in a shift from benthic to pelagic consumers.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 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".