Variation in Ringed Seal ( <i>Pusa hispida</i> ) Density Along a Latitudinal Gradient of Sea‐Ice Conditions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Anthropogenic climate warming is triggering poleward species redistributions, highlighting the importance of understanding how species distributions and abundance vary along latitudinal gradients. Ringed seals ( Pusa hispida ) rely on sea ice as habitat during key periods of their life history and inhabit a broad latitudinal range with diverse sea‐ice conditions, making them a model species to study patterns in density along a spatial–environmental gradient. We estimated the density of ringed seals from systematic aerial surveys along a latitudinal gradient in the eastern Canadian Arctic to investigate the response of ringed seals to regional variation in sea‐ice conditions. Ringed seals exhibited similar densities at our low (58.8° N; 2017: 0.46 ± 0.11 seals/km 2 ) and intermediate latitude (72.7° N; 2016: 0.70 ± 0.14 seals/km 2 ; 2017: 0.45 ± 0.07 seals/km 2 ) regions. In contrast, observed ringed seal densities (2018: 0.05 ± 0.01 seals/km 2 ; 2019: 0.09 ± 0.01 seals/km 2 ) in the high‐latitude region (82.5° N) were an order of magnitude lower. This shift is concurrent with the transition in ice conditions from predominantly first‐year ice (85.0% concentration) at the low‐latitude region to primarily multiyear ice (86.8% concentration) at the high‐latitude region. These findings indicate that the variation in icescapes across the ringed seal's vast range likely has an influence on their density. We propose that ringed seal densities at higher latitudes are limited by multiyear ice, which is less suitable for construction of undersnow lairs and breathing holes. The shift in sea‐ice conditions may also have consequences for biological productivity that supports their diet. Our results suggest a nonuniform response of ringed seals to ongoing sea‐ice recession across the Arctic. Ringed seal densities could increase with a shift from multiyear to first‐year ice at higher latitudes and simultaneously decline with a transition from first‐year ice to open water at lower latitudes.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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) | 0.001 | 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".