Population identity of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the waters of the US mid-Atlantic states
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In recent years, humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) have been observed in the waters of the US mid-Atlantic states (USMA; New Jersey to North Carolina), notably in winter. The level of the mortality in this area (52 recorded deaths from 1990-2000), makes it important to understand the nature and population identity of this aggregation. Of the approximately 100 humpback whales documented in this study, photographs of 41 (live or dead) were of sufficient quality to be compared to catalogues from the Gulf of Maine (GOM, the closest feeding ground) and elsewhere in the North Atlantic. Of 22 live whales, 10 (45.5%) matched to the GOM, 5 (22.7%) to Newfoundland and 1 (4.5%) to the Gulf of St Lawrence (GSL). Of 19 dead whales, 6 (31.6%) were known GOM whales. Although the population composition of the USMA is dominated by GOM whales, lack of recent photographic effort in Newfoundland makes it likely that the observed match rates under represent the true presence of Canadian whales in the region. Length data from 48 stranded whales (18 females, 22 males and 8 of unknown sex) suggest that 39 (81.2%) were first-year animals, 7 (14.6%) were immature and 2 (4.2%) were adults. However, sighting histories of five of the dead whales indicate that some were small for their age and histories of live whales further indicate that the population contains a greater percentage of mature animals than is suggested by the stranded sample. The authors suggest that the study area primarily represents a supplemental winter feeding ground that is used by humpbacks for more than one purpose. From a management perspective, although the only successful matches of mortalities to date have been to the GOM, the observed mixing of live whales from different summer stocks might suggest that the high numbers of mortalities occurring there may not be impacting this single stock alone. Although further data are required before conclusions can be drawn, the mortality rate may be significant for the GOM population and this warrants further investigation.
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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".