Specifying Caribou Migratory Behaviours to Identify and Preserve Intraspecies Diversity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Preserving intraspecies diversity, a fundamental conservation goal, strengthens species adaptability. Across most of their range, caribou are declining, with some recent population extirpations. Migratory or sedentary movement behaviours are considered adaptive relative to local ecological conditions of Barren-ground and Woodland Caribou populations (respectively). In addition, these behaviours may be genetically influenced. As populations decline and are lost, local characteristics, including movement ecology and genetic traits (or their links) that may be adaptive, are also at risk of disappearing. In this Thesis, I describe the prevalence of migratory, resident, and other seasonal movement behaviours for Barren-ground and Woodland Caribou in northern and western Canada. I exemplify that caribou behaviour is diverse and complex, requiring a combination of methods to categorize, and I challenge traditional distinctions between, and binary categorization of, migratory and resident behaviour. I also develop an equation for quantifying between-year individual behavioural plasticity to estimate how flexible caribou can be in their movement behaviour. Finally, I assess the potential for reproductive isolation between migratory versus non-migratory caribou in populations where both seasonal behaviours co-occur. I therefore determine the location of, and separation between, migratory and non-migratory individuals during the rutting season to evaluate if individuals exhibiting the same movement behaviour are associated with one another during the period of genetic exchange. Despite the common description of Woodland Caribou as primarily non-migratory, migratory behaviour was found to occur widely in Woodland Caribou populations. Additionally, individuals were flexible in their migratory behaviours between years. Populations may therefore be more behaviourally diverse and perhaps behaviourally adaptable than previously thought. However, I also found that migratory and non-migratory caribou could be separate during the rutting season, indicating potential for reproductive isolation. From these results, correlations of seasonal movement behaviours with environmental conditions and with genetic traits could be determined to evaluate if caribou respond to the environment plastically or if instead, they are limited by their genes. Specifying seasonal migratory behaviours, evaluating between-year behavioural plasticity, and testing for genetic predispositions for seasonal movement patterns may help refine conservation and management strategies to aid caribou recovery.
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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 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
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".