Illuminating the Historical Ecology of Polar Bears (Ursus Maritimus) from the Lancaster Sound Subpopulation, Nunavut, using Stable Isotope Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are among the Arctic species that are most threatened by climate change.However, little is known about the ecology of polar bears over extended temporal intervals (>50 years).The goal of my thesis is to determine whether historic polar bears from the Lancaster Sound subpopulation underwent ecological shifts in response to a changing Arctic climate throughout the 20 th century (1950s-1970s) using stable isotope analysis.Historic polar bears did not undergo significant dietary shifts, remaining apex predators.The consistent reliance on seals and whales as their primary prey indicates continued access to optimal hunting conditions (i.e., sea ice).There is evidence that suggests environmental changes occurred from 1950-1970.This thesis offers novel insights into the historical ecology of polar bears, and provides a long-term isotopic baseline for polar bear ecology that will enable future studies to assess ongoing ecological changes of modern polar bears.iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge that Carleton University is located on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People, and that the specimens used in this project were collected from the traditional territory of the Inuit.As settlers, we must make the collective commitment to make the promise and the challenge of Truth and Reconciliation real in our communities, to honour the Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples, and bring justice for murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls across the country.I would like to thank my thesis supervisors, Dr. Danielle Fraser and Dr. Root Gorelick.I can say with absolute certainty that this thesis would not exist in its current form without their guidance and endless support.I would especially like to thank Dr. Fraser for reading every single draft of my thesis without fail, and always offering
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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 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| 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) | 0.001 | 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".