Clonality disguises the vulnerability of a threatened arid zone Acacia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Long‐lived, widespread plant species are expected to be genetically diverse, reflecting the interaction between large population sizes, overlapping generations, and gene flow. Such species are thought to be resilient to disturbance, but may carry an extinction debt due to reproductive failure. Genetic studies of Australian arid zone plant species suggest an unusually high frequency of asexuality, polyploidy, or both. A preliminary AFLP genetic study implied that the naturally fragmented arid zone tree, Acacia carneorum, is almost entirely dependent on asexual reproduction through suckering, and stands may have lacked genetic diversity and interconnection even prior to the onset of European pastoralism. Here we surveyed microsatellite genetic variation in 20 stands to test for variation in life histories and further assessed the conservation status of the species by comparing genetic diversity within protected stands in National Parks and disturbed range lands. Using herbarium records, we estimate that 219 stands are extant, all of which occur in the arid zone, west of the Darling River in southeastern Australia. With two exceptions, all surveyed stands comprised only one multilocus genet and at least eight were putatively polyploid. Although some stands comprise thousands of stems, our findings imply that the species as a whole may represent ~240 distinct genetic individuals, many of which are polyploid, and most are separated by >10 km of unsuitable habitat. With only 34% of stands (and therefore genets) occurring within conservation reserves, A. carneorum may be at much greater risk of extinction than inferred from on‐ground census data. Land managers should prioritize on‐ground preservation of the genotypes within existing reserves, protecting both vegetative suckers and seedlings from herbivory. Importantly, three stands are known to set viable seed and should be used to generate genetically diverse germ‐plasm for ex situ conservation, population augmentation, or translocation.
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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 | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 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) | 0.002 | 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".