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Inferring wildlife population trends from hierarchical habitat selection: a case study with boreal caribou

2025· preprint· en· W4414060842 on OpenAlexafffundabout
Julie W. Turner, Samuel Haché, James Hodson, Philip D. McLoughlin, Tatiane Micheletti, Michael J. L. Peers, Agnès Pelletier, Eliot J. B. McIntire

Bibliographic record

Venuenot available
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
TopicGenetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
Canadian institutionsCanadian Forest ServiceGovernment of British ColumbiaUniversity of AlbertaUniversity of SaskatchewanEnvironment and Climate Change CanadaGovernment of Northwest TerritoriesMemorial University of Newfoundland
FundersCanadian Forest ServiceU.S. Forest ServiceEnvironment and Climate Change Canada
KeywordsHabitatContext (archaeology)PopulationSelection (genetic algorithm)WildlifeBorealWildlife management

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Habitat selection is context dependent and varies across space and time. Therefore, habitat selection models built from declining or highly disturbed populations may not accurately represent the optimal behavior of species and would perform poorly predicting across space and time. Here, we performed an integrated step selection analysis to predict caribou habitat use in: 1) each of five jurisdictions in the western boreal forest of Canada and 2) one global model. We found the global model had better predictive performance across space than jurisdictional models and also performed well when projected across time. Furthermore, the difference in intensity of selection between jurisdictional models and the global model provided a metric of deviation from “optimal” habitat selection that corresponded with known herd population statuses. This result shows that by working together, jurisdictions can build better predictive models of both habitat and population trends to better inform strategic management.

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)0.002
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.005
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.409
Threshold uncertainty score0.814

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0020.005
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0010.001
Scholarly communication0.0010.001
Open science0.0010.000
Research integrity0.0010.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.000

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.

Opus teacher head0.013
GPT teacher head0.276
Teacher spread0.262 · 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 designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

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

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes3
Has abstractyes

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