Acorn germination is not enhanced near cache sites relative to random locations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Acorns produced by oak (genus Quercus L.) trees are eaten by numerous wildlife species, many of which may also contribute to oak regeneration by dispersing acorns to favorable microhabitats. According to the directed dispersal hypothesis, seed dispersal agents may preferentially move seeds to locations that favor seedling establishment. As a case study of the directed dispersal hypothesis, we tested the hypothesis that vertebrate scatterhoarders preferentially cache acorns in locations where conditions favor germination. We planted acorns within 0.3 m of known cache sites (cache plots) and at paired random plots that were located at equal distances from the acorn source. We then monitored germination, seedling emergence, and growth over the first year. Acorns near actual cache sites germinated at lower rates than acorns in random sites, the opposite of what would be predicted by the directed dispersal hypothesis, but insufficient seedling survival prevented statistical analysis of survival and growth. These results do not support the directed dispersal hypothesis with regard to the microhabitat at cache plots, and do not address the effects of seed burial or the potential for longer term positive effects on survival of germinated seedlings.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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".