BAM Generalized National Models Documentation, Version 4.0
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Reliable information on species' population sizes, trends, habitat associations, and distributions is important for conservation and land-use planning, as well as status assessment and recovery planning for species at risk. However, the development of such estimates at a national scale is challenged by a variety of factors, including sparse data coverage in remote regions, differential habitat selection across large geographies, and variation in survey protocols. With these factors in mind, we developed a generalized analytical approach to model species density in relation to environmental covariates, using the Boreal Avian Modelling Project database of point-count surveys (through 2018) and widely available spatial predictors. We developed separate models for each geographic region (bird conservation regions intersected by jurisdiction boundaries) based on covariates such as tree species biomass (local and landscape scale), forest age, topography, land use, and climate. We used machine learning to allow for variable interactions and non-linear responses while avoiding time-consuming species-by-species parameterization. We applied cross-validation to avoid overfitting and bootstrap resampling to estimate uncertainty associated with our density estimates. Results available at https://borealbirds.github.io/ Please note, in late March 2025, we discovered and fixed a bug in the code for calculating QPAD offsets that dated back approximately ten years. The bug was within the code used to adjust time zones and therefore affects QPAD offsets used for species with time since sunrise in the top model and in areas outside the mountain time zone. Since QPAD offsets only adjust the intercept of model estimates, this bug will only affect model outcomes if models were built for density or population estimates per se, or models were compared or integrated across time zones. Relative patterns of density (e.g., habitat coefficients) within time zones should be unaffected. If you have been affected by this bug, please see the QPAD-offsets-correction repository for further details or email bamp@ualberta.ca for assistance.
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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 | 0.006 | 0.016 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.006 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.267 | 0.106 |
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".