Impact of imidacloprid-based chemical control for hemlock woolly adelgid ( <i>Adelges tsugae</i> ) on the eastern red-backed salamander ( <i>Plethodon cinereus</i> )
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA; Adelges tsugae) is an invasive insect causing widespread mortality of eastern hemlock ( Tsuga canadensis) across eastern North America, altering forest structure and associated ecosystems. The insecticide imidacloprid is used for HWA control, but its persistence and potential for soil and water contamination raises concern for fossorial species. We used the eastern red-backed salamander (RBS; Plethodon cinereus) as an indicator species to assess how HWA infestation and imidacloprid treatment influence hemlock stands in southwestern Nova Scotia. We conducted line transect surveys across two HWA-infested sites—each containing four treated and four untreated 1 ha stands—and one uninfested control site with four mature hemlock stands. We applied a multi-model Akaike’s information criterion corrected for small sample sizes framework to test the effects of treatment, infestation, and environmental covariates on RBS abundance, body condition, and abundance within a zone of potential residue exposure. Treatment and infestation were the only predictors of abundance: treatment increased abundance, whereas infestation reduced it. Canopy openness, soil pH, and soil moisture did not differ significantly among stands, and none were found to be predictors of body condition or abundance within the zone of potential exposure. These results reinforce the value of integrating chemical control with long-term monitoring while biological control strategies develop.
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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 | 0.000 |
| 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 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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".