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Record W4412078792 · doi:10.1007/s00239-025-10257-5

Stochastic Character Mapping: An Under-Exploited Approach to the Study of Molecular Evolution

2025· article· en· W4412078792 on OpenAlexafffund
Simon Laurin-Lemay, Nicolas Rodrigue

Bibliographic record

VenueJournal of Molecular Evolution · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicGenomics and Phylogenetic Studies
Canadian institutionsCarleton University
FundersNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
KeywordsBiologyCharacter (mathematics)Evolutionary biologyCharacter evolutionComputational biologyMolecular evolutionGeneticsPhylogeneticsGene

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Methods for the probabilistic mapping of the history of state changes over a phylogeny have been available for the study of molecular evolution for over two decades. In spite of this, such methods have yet to be adopted at large by most molecular evolutionary biologists. Here, we re-emphasize the potential of these stochastic mappings with examples pertaining to the study of the amino acid replacement process. We show how the features targeted by today's top-performing models could have been highlighted in a full phylogenetic context with an amino acid-level Jukes-Cantor model. We also demonstrate how stochastic mappings could be used for detecting CpG hypermutability, a site-dependent feature. We hope for a larger project utilizing mapping-based methods to provide of more fulsome characterization of molecular evolution, and to prioritize and assess modeling efforts. Finally, we draw attention to the options available within the PhyloBayes(-MPI) software for producing mappings under a large set of evolutionary models.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not 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.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.005
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.016
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: Theoretical or conceptual
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.005
Threshold uncertainty score0.024

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0050.016
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.002
Bibliometrics0.0030.003
Science and technology studies0.0010.002
Scholarly communication0.0020.003
Open science0.0020.002
Research integrity0.0010.003
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0020.001

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.

Opus teacher head0.015
GPT teacher head0.246
Teacher spread0.231 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreMethods

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".

Quick stats

Citations3
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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