Bottom-up regulation of food webs in a high-latitude environment depends on season and habitat type
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Food source and quality influence benthic trophic pathways and health status of scavengers at high latitudes. We hypothesised that benthic responses to food sources differing in nutritional value vary across habitats and seasons. We therefore deployed Baited Remote Underwater Video systems with four different types of bait in coastal waters (≤20 m) of the Nain Archipelago (Labrador, Canada). Strong seasonality and a variety of habitat types (e.g., mud and rhodolith beds) characterize this high latitude environment. We deployed an in situ feeding experiment in those habitats during the ice-covered spring and ice-free fall. We selected bait commonly found in the region that fluctuates according to environmental conditions and biotic interactions: herring ( Clupea harengus ), lion's mane jellyfish ( Cyanea capillata ), kelp ( Laminaria sp.), and crab ( Chionoecetes opilio ). We deployed herring and kelp in both seasons but the absence of lion's mane in spring only allowed for fall deployments, and we therefore used the crab treatment in spring instead. We observed significantly lower feeding activity in the spring compared to the fall deployments regardless of bait type. The highly structural rhodolith beds supported higher feeding activity than any other habitat and more diverse species composition than the flat muddy habitat. In all habitats, the number of visitors feeding on the fish treatment was significantly higher than to the lion's mane, likely reflecting its higher nutritional value. Species composition between treatments differed significantly, where toad crab Hyas spp. and whelk Buccinum undatum dominated the fish treatment. Only one species consumed kelp and crab treatments, sea urchin Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis and whelk, respectively. Overall, season tempered the intensity of scavenger initial response to a food fall deployments whereas habitat and treatment regulated key players and intensity. Bottom-up effects on benthic scavengers therefore depend on season, habitat, and food source. • Benthic scavenger activity varies with season, habitat, and bait at high latitudes. • Scavenger feeding activity diminished in spring regardless of bait and habitat. • Rhodolith beds supported higher scavenger feeding activity than flat muddy habitat. • Scavenging community structure visiting the fish differed from the jelly treatment. • Scavengers showed the least interest in crab or kelp treatments.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| 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 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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".