Fine-scale variability in habitat selection and niche differentiation between sponges and cold-water corals on vertical walls of the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Deep-sea vertical walls are characterized by enhanced hydrodynamics and hard substrates, making them particularly suitable habitats for suspension feeders, including vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) indicator taxa, like cold-water corals (CWC) and sponges. These species enhance the complexity of the abiotic background and the retention of trophic resources increasing habitat availability for other organisms. While some areas of vertical walls present a high density of VMEs, others are mostly bare rock. However, the habitat characteristics that favour the presence of CWC and sponges within vertical walls at a fine-scale (under 1 m) are still poorly understood despite their ecological importance. Owing to technological limitations, fine-scale terrain variables (e.g., orientation, curvature, verticality, roughness, slope) have seldom been quantified in deep-sea habitats. These terrain variables can represent proxies of community structuring factors (e.g., hydrodynamics conveying food, sedimentation rates) important to understand habitat selection of VME indicator species. In this study, we investigate the fine-scale habitat selection and niche differentiation of CWC and sponges on vertical walls of the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone. Structure-from-motion photogrammetry was employed to create high-resolution 3D models of three vertical walls based on remotely operated vehicle (ROV) videos (at 1060-1901 m depth). The 3D models were used to derive terrain variables at fine-scale and geotag corals and sponges. Using ecological niche factor analysis, we reveal that corals and sponges selected habitat features that significantly differ from the average habitat available. The corals and sponges studied showed large or complete niche partitioning. Solenosmilia sp. had total niche separation with Geodia spp. and globular sponges and partial separation with Hertwigia spp., while Scleralcyonacea showed partial niche separation with Geodia spp. and globular sponges. Conversely, the niches of closely related sponges were more similar. This research advances our understanding of the processes enabling species co-existence among these organisms and the factors influencing habitat preferences of VME indicator species on steep underwater landscapes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".