Near-seafloor optical imagery surveys conducted in 2023 and 2024 across the St. Anns Bank Marine Protected Area, Nova Scotia, Canada: Mission report and preliminary findings
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A near-seafloor optical imagery survey was conducted in 2023 and 2024 at 41 locations (depths ranging from 17 to 144 m) across the St. Anns Bank Marine Protected Area (MPA), Nova Scotia. Objectives were to characterize unique bathymetric features (e.g., Curdo and Scatarie Banks), validate previously published benthoscape predictions (i.e., classifications of the landscape of the seafloor encompassing biophysical characteristics), and to update information on benthic species assemblages for the first time since MPA designation in 2017. Target locations were selected using high-resolution multibeam data, benthoscape classifications, and prior benthic biological survey locations. Over 44.5 km of the seafloor was surveyed (estimated area coverage 60430 m2) resulting in over 36 hours of digital video, and over 3300 digital still images. Full video sequences were used to describe and characterize each transect and all images were analyzed to ground-truth benthoscapes. Summary observations for Curdo and Scatarie Banks are presented. A sub-set of 639 images was selected for preliminary analysis of species occurrences. Several benthic species recognized as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem indicators, and/or contributory to defining Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas, were common throughout the MPA across varying depths, including soft corals (Malacalcyonacea) and stalked tunicate fields. Crinoids (Heliometra glacialis) were found at high densities in gravel and bedrock habitats in the southeast corner of the MPA near plateau features ~100-m deep. Previously noted to occur within the MPA, the 2023 and 2024 surveys provided significant new areal coverage for defining the overall extent of crinoid beds.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
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.
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".