Reconciling individual-based forest growth models with landscape-level studies through a meta-modelling approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Landscape-level studies such as those on forest management planning and carbon accounting rely on large-area growth projections provided by forest growth models. Nowadays, most of these models are individual tree-based models. The detailed input they require and their complexity are a challenge for the integration into a landscape-level study. A possible alternative consists of approximating the complex model through a meta-model. A meta-model mimics the behaviour of the original model, while being simpler in terms of input and computation. In this study, we developed a Bayesian meta-modelling approach that can be used to obtain a simplified growth model from an individual tree-based model. The approach was exemplified through a real-world case study, namely a forest management unit in the province of Quebec, Canada. Using a Markov chain Monte Carlo method, we managed to fit meta-models based on the Chapman–Richards equation or its derivative for the main potential vegetation types. This meta-modelling approach has the advantages of ( i) being an effective method of upscaling, ( ii) providing simple meta-models suitable for landscape-level studies, and ( iii) ensuring a proper error propagation from the original individual tree-based model into the meta-model.
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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 | 0.005 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| 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".