Impact of invasive Typha and wetland interspersion on muskrat declines in North America
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Muskrat ( Ondatra zibethicus ) populations are declining in North America. The exact cause of these declines is largely unknown. Along a similar timeframe, wetlands have been experiencing an invasion of cattail ( Typha ) throughout the continent. Specifically, T. x glauca , a hybrid of native T. latifolia and non-native T. angustifolia , has been increasing in range and abundance. This hybrid is associated with many negative impacts on wetland ecosystems, including reductions in biodiversity, open water habitat, and interspersion of water and emergent vegetation, the latter of which is an important habitat feature for muskrats. We sought to determine the impact of invasive T. x glauca on muskrat populations. We sampled 39 Typha -dominated marshes in southern Ontario, Canada to test the hypotheses that muskrats are declining in North America due to: (1) the increased relative abundance of T. x glauca in marshes, and (2) reduced wetland interspersion, which is associated with T. x glauca invasions. We estimated muskrat population density using house counts, sampled Typha communities to determine the relative abundance of T. x glauca , and measured interspersion using remote sensing techniques. We found that muskrat population density was positively associated with interspersion, but not associated with the relative abundance of T. x glauca . However, most sites were highly dominated by T. x glauca , limiting our inference. Our findings suggest that changing wetland structure may be contributing to muskrat population declines in North America, but more research is needed to determine the full impact of T. x glauca invasions on muskrat population declines. • Muskrat ( Ondatra zibethicus ) populations are declining across North America. • Hybrid cattail ( Typha x glauca ) is invading and degrading muskrat habitat in North America. • We compared muskrat densities to hybrid cattail abundance and wetland structure. • Muskrats are likely responding negatively to reduced habitat quality in wetlands. • Further research is needed to determine the impact of T. x glauca on muskrat population declines.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 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".