Marked Variability in Distance‐Decay Patterns Suggests Contrasting Dispersal Ability in Abyssal Taxa
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Aim We assess the role of spatial distance and depth difference in shaping beta diversity patterns across abyssal seascape regions. We measured the decrease of faunistic similarity across the northeast Pacific seafloor, to test whether species turnover rates differ between deep and shallow‐abyssal biogeographical provinces and whether these patterns vary across functionally or taxonomically different biotic groups. Location Abyssal NE Pacific Ocean. Time Period Present. Major Taxa Studied Benthic Invertebrates (13 Phyla). Methods We examined the relationship between compositional similarity (𝛽 sim ) and spatial distance, distance‐decay, in benthic megafauna communities (animals > 10 mm) based on seabed imagery data (> 36,000 specimens in 402 species) collected across 28 abyssal seascape locations spanning a total of 4000 km. By comparing the statistical parameters (intercept and slope) of decay curves, we investigated whether distance‐decay patterns differ (i) between communities above and below the carbonate compensation depth (~4400 m at N Pacific), (ii) among taxa with contrasting life‐habits and (ii) across dominant phyla. Results We found steeper species turnover rates in communities below 4400 m and variations in distance‐decay patterns across biotic groups. Turnover was higher for taxa facultatively growing on hard‐substratum patches (polymetallic nodules) than for sediment‐dwelling or swimming organisms. Cnidaria and Porifera, respectively, depicted the most and least evident spatial decays in community similarity. Main Conclusions We demonstrate the utility of combining seabed imaging with distance‐decay modelling to capture macroecological patterns in poorly explored deep‐sea ecosystems. Our results suggest that chemical boundaries associated with depth are a very relevant niche‐sorting mechanism driving large‐scale beta‐diversity patterns and an association between species life‐habits and dispersal limitation in abyssal seabed communities. These findings have important implications for biodiversity conservation plans in the deep ocean, amid the need to protect vast abyssal seascape ecosystems from globally rising human threats.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 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".