Size-at-maturity shift in a male-only fishery: factors affecting molt-type outcomes in Newfoundland and Labrador snow crab (<i>Chionoecetes opilio</i>)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract A sex-asymmetric downward shift in size-at-terminal-molt has recently occurred in males in some portions of the Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) snow crab stock range, a first known occurrence for such processes in snow crab (Chionoecetes opilio) stocks. This study examines plausible factors promoting the shift in size-at-terminal-molt [synonymous with size-at-maturity (SaM)] including individual size, temperature, population density, and sex ratio. Analyses highlight expanse of cold water and large male density as being significant predictors of molt-type outcomes. A confluence of cold conditions and low density of large males promoted the SaM shift. In turn, the low male density was associated with recently elevated fishery exploitation rates under quota-controlled management. It remains unknown the extent to which the reduction in terminal size reflects a phenotypic vs. genotypic process. Factors affecting skip-molting in male snow crab are investigated, and we find that skip-molting occurs most frequently under extreme cold and high population density conditions. Potential complications arising from altered growth dynamics are discussed. Overall, the results advance knowledge on intraspecific competition processes within snow crab populations and inform fisheries management systems that male-only harvest strategies do not provide full protection from biological harm to aquatic resources through fishing.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 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 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| 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 teacher head, 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".