Vacuums of the sea: Ecological function of large coral reef benthic scavengers in suppressing crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) outbreaks
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Despite their drastic impacts on coral reefs, outbreaks of the coral-feeding seastar crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS), Acanthaster, have remained a scientific enigma. Significant efforts in coral reef conservation science have been dedicated to identifying natural predators able to exert demographic control on COTS and prevent population outbreaks. These efforts are motivated by empirical evidence showing that reefs within marine protected areas are less prone to COTS outbreaks than reefs open to fishing where potential COTS predators have been reduced or removed functionally from food webs. Research findings point towards COTS’ early life-stages as a major demographic bottleneck for COTS populations, with various reef fish and benthic organisms identified as preying upon the seastar. Yet, no species or species groups have been clearly identified as exerting enough top-down control to influence COTS population increases or prevent outbreaks. We report the benthic scavenging behavior of eagle rays (family Myliobatidae), a large-bodied predator, feeding in coral rubble fields of Kanaky New Caledonia, critical habitats where juvenile COTS find refuge and food and accumulate to produce population outbreaks. We argue that with their effective substrate-sucking feeding behavior, similar to vacuums of the sea, eagle rays may be a hitherto unidentified predator able to exert significant control on COTS populations. Eagle rays and other large benthic scavengers were previously neglected in the search for major COTS predators. Relatively little existing data show that eagle ray populations in Kanaky New Caledonia’s lagoon are more abundant inside than outside marine protected areas, which concords with the hypothesis that they could be responsible for the mitigation of COTS outbreaks as reported within reserves. We advocate for further investigations on the role of eagle rays and other large benthic scavengers in controlling COTS outbreaks, and the importance of preserving the unique ecological function of sea vacuums for coral reef conservation.
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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 | 0.001 |
| 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 | 0.001 |
| 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".