Between-species patterns of covariation in plant size, seed size and fecundity in monocarpic herbs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Covariation in plant mass, seed mass and fecundity was investigated for 15 species of monocarpic herbs (annuals and biennials) harvested at final developmental stage from recently disturbed habitats. Above-ground vegetative mass and fecundity varied by over three orders of magnitude and seed mass varied by over two orders of magnitude across species. Eighty-eight percent of the variation in fecundity across species was explained by covariation in the other two characters as predictor variables in a least squares regression model; fecundity increased significantly and proportionately with increasing above-ground vegetative mass but decreased significantly and proportionately with increasing individual seed mass. Individual seed mass and above-ground vegetative mass were positively correlated across species when fecundity was held constant under partial correlation. The results indicate that none of the relationships between these characters are size-dependent, i.e., the traditional trade-off, predicted by life history theory, between seed size and fecundity is isometric across species, as is the increase in both fecundity and total seed mass with increasing vegetative mass. Allometric (size-dependent) relationships for these characters have been reported in previous studies where developmental stage was not controlled across species; the detection of isometric relationships in the present study may therefore be a consequence of measuring whole-genet, lifetime fecundity and above-ground vegetative mass for all study species. A general hypothesis is presented for the interpretation of covariation in plant size, seed size and fecundity across species in which the principal selection mechanism involves ‘time limitation’. The amount of time available for growth (before density-independent mortality, e.g., from disturbance) selects for the level of precocity necessary to reproduce before death. This affects the level of constraint on maximum attainable plant size, i.e., smaller when shorter-lived. This, in turn, affects reproductive output, which can be greater when longer-lived, expressed as greater fecundity and/or larger seed size. However, both cannot be maximized because of the inherent trade-off between seed size and fecundity for plants of a given size.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| 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 | 0.001 |
| 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".