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Record W4414324084 · doi:10.1101/2025.09.15.676271

Navigating methodological decisions: Balancing rigor and data volume of the Canadian Living Planet Index

2025· preprint· en· W4414324084 on OpenAlexafffundabout
Jessica Currie, Sarah M Ravoth, Valentina Marconi, Louise McRae, María Isabel Arce-Plata, Sandra Emry, Robin Freeman, Maximiliane Jousse, Gaëlle Mével, Shuaishuai Li, Cristian A. Cruz-Rodríguez, Philippa Oppenheimer, Lauren Gill, Janaína Serrano, Stefanie Deinet

Bibliographic record

VenuebioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldEnvironmental Science
TopicLand Use and Ecosystem Services
Canadian institutionsUniversité de MontréalUniversité du Québec à MontréalMcGill UniversityUniversity of British ColumbiaWorld Wildlife Fund Canada
FundersNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
KeywordsBiodiversityAccountabilityWeightingTransparency (behavior)Index (typography)Baseline (sea)Global biodiversityBiodiversity conservation

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract The Living Planet Index — a biodiversity indicator that assesses the relative change of aggregate vertebrate abundance data — is an indicator used in global and national biodiversity monitoring frameworks. In Canada, the LPI has been modified (C-LPI) — adopting differing methodological choices relative to the global LPI. However, there is no clear consensus on the most appropriate analytical methods, particularly as they pertain to the treatment of zeros, confidence intervals and uncertainty, time series length and number of data points required, modelling of short time series, removal of outliers, weighting species, and the impact of baseline year selection. Our analysis transparently explores multiple methodological options and the consequent C-LPI output for each of these decision points. Our research does not evaluate the superiority of a single approach but rather provides transparency and accountability in C-LPI reporting. We hope that this will further strengthen the utility of the C-LPI and provide decision makers with the necessary information to appropriately interpret patterns, evaluate progress towards biodiversity targets, and inform conservation action.

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)0.684
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.854
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesMetaresearch
Consensus categoriesMetaresearch
DomainCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.955
Threshold uncertainty score0.877

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.6840.854
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0020.002
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0030.003
Bibliometrics0.0130.022
Science and technology studies0.0110.018
Scholarly communication0.0230.006
Open science0.0110.015
Research integrity0.0040.008
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0030.001

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 head0.040
GPT teacher head0.271
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; the direct Gemma label and the distilled Codex classifier agree on what is shown here.

Study designTheoretical or conceptual
DomainMethods
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

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes3
Has abstractyes

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