A horizon scanning approach to rapidly detect alien fern species through horticultural trade
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Horticultural trade is a well-documented pathway of introduction for numerous invasive species globally, including ferns. In this study, we analysed trade in terrestrial true ferns (Polypodiophyta) in six anglophone countries: Canada (CA), the United States of America (US), Great Britain and Ireland (GB, for ease of reading), South Africa (ZA), Australia (AU), and New Zealand (NZ). The study provides an overview of fern trade and explored the relationship between trade and alien fern introductions with a view to better inform management interventions. Using a horizon scanning approach in consulting horticultural catalogues, we identified a total of 382 fern species currently traded by 148 traders in a period of just six months. International trade was observed in only three countries with most trade occurring at national scales and e-commerce was not the dominant mode of trade noted in this study, with a relatively higher proportion of species traded on-ground. Alien species accounted for more than 60 % of the total number of traded species in most countries except in AU and NZ, and a surprising number of species (11-14 species per country) known to be naturalised or invasive in their country of trade remain actively traded, with fewer species in CA (2) and AU (5). A total of 194 species noted in trade have not previously been recorded as alien in plant species inventories and did not have an invasion status assigned in their countries of trade. We identified 62 species of concern (i.e., potential future invaders) with Dryopteris erythrosora, Anisocampium niponicum, Polystichum polyblepharum, Austroblechnum penna-marina subsp. penna-marina, Asplenium nidus, Dicksonia antarctica, Polypodium vulgare, and Adiantum raddianum indicated as priority species for regulation in trade due to their high market presence. Citizen science records were noted for very few species of concern with only two records indicating the occurrence of two species in natural or semi-natural areas. This research constitutes one of few studies that have applied a horizon scanning approach using horticultural catalogues to identify alien species, and highlights the efficiency of this approach as a tool for the early detection of potentially invasive species.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
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 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 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".