The solar cycle as a possible modulator of ecosystem functioning on the decadal time scale : new evidence from North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) feeding scars and climatic data
Bibliographic record
Abstract
North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) feeding scars on trees were used as an index of past porcupine abundance in the Bas St. Laurent region of eastern Quebec, Canada. The frequency distribution of scars revealed that porcupine populations have fluctuated regularly over the past 130 years in the Bas St. Laurent region, with superimposed periodicities of 11 and 22 years. This porcupine population cycle has closely followed the 11 and 22-year solar activity cycles. An analysis of local temperature and precipitation data revealed a close relationship between fluctuations in annual precipitation and both the solar cycle and the porcupine cycle. These results suggest that the solar cycle has sufficiently important effects on the climate along the southern shore of the St. Lawrence estuary to influence terrestrial ecosystem functioning to the point of setting the rhythm of porcupine population fluctuations. This is the strongest available evidence of a top-down cascading effect of solar variability on ecological systems at the decadal time scale and local spatial scale. These results confirm and extend those obtained by others at greater temporal and spatial scales and provide exciting opportunities for future research on the extensively debated topic of solar variability and its impact on our planet.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 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".