{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp06_four_proposal_generalization60_20260803","cell_id":"bounded_rivalry_governance__environmental_climate","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"brg-climate-seed-source-arena-004","proposal_index":4,"version":0,"title":"Bounded Seed-Source Rivalry for Climate-Adjusted Forest Regeneration","problem":"A forest-restoration program must choose which eligible native seed-source populations receive limited space in future regeneration plantings. In an unmanaged mixed trial, a source can dominate by arriving at greater density, producing rapid early growth, or monopolizing light and water before slower competitors express drought, heat, or recovery traits. Selecting the early leader for broad deployment can therefore confuse propagule pressure and short-horizon dominance with durable contribution across environmental conditions, while suppressing alternative sources before their complementary performance can be observed.","actors":["Public or community forest-land manager","Restoration ecologists and forest geneticists","Native-seed collectors and nurseries","Traceable seed-source populations and their planted cohorts","Phytosanitary and biosecurity personnel","Independent measurement and appeal reviewers","Neighboring landholders and habitat stewards","Wildlife, understory communities, and other ecological receptors exposed to trial spillovers"],"observable_state":"Within randomized trial blocks, managers can observe initial viable stem count, survival, growth, canopy capture, water stress, recovery after stress, mortality, reproductive development, source abundance, competitive suppression, soil and understory effects, pathogen findings, escape beyond plot boundaries, measurement reproducibility, and rank changes across moisture, temperature, soil, and competition treatments. Dominance that disappears after equalizing starting density or changes sharply across treatments is distinguishable from consistently useful performance.","consequence":"A restoration program may allocate most future planting space to an early dominant source, narrow the regeneration portfolio, and lose potentially complementary responses to drought, heat, pests, or microsite variation. Trial outcomes can also be distorted by unequal propagule supply, nursery inputs, mislabeled material, or supplier influence rather than ecological contribution.","affected_objective":"Choose a traceable portfolio of native seed sources for staged forest regeneration that maintains establishment performance, response diversity, ecological safeguards, and future replaceability under uncertain climate conditions.","intervention":"Establish a bounded ecological rivalry arena before any landscape-scale deployment. Publish a frozen protocol defining the restoration purpose, eligible native sources, traceability and phytosanitary requirements, trial boundaries, equal starting stem counts, allowed nursery treatments, shared inputs, stress regimes, measurements, fouls, scoring, appeals, and advancement rules. Randomize tagged seedlings across replicated single-source and mixed-source blocks spanning authorized moisture, temperature, soil, and competition treatments. Cap each source's starting abundance and supplemental resources so victory cannot be purchased through propagule pressure or preferential care. Score survival, stress recovery, growth within a safety range, reproducibility, ecological compatibility, and performance across treatments; separately estimate whether a source adds useful response diversity to the selected set. Audit source identity, starting condition, treatment delivery, and leading measurements. Advance several complementary sources to limited next-stage planting rather than automatically scaling the top aggregate score, impose a maximum deployment share, preserve reference sources, and reopen later cohorts to qualified challengers. Keep the first stage reproductively contained, monitor pathogens and off-plot establishment, prohibit unapproved inputs or extra planting, and review realized interactions before revising, expanding, suspending, or dismantling the arena.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Rivalry purpose statement","domain_realization":"Use controlled biological competition to reveal which eligible native seed sources contribute establishment performance and complementary climate responses, rather than merely identifying the fastest early grower."},{"archetype_element":"Scarce prize or selection constraint","domain_realization":"Limited shares of next-stage regeneration planting, along with finite trial space, monitoring capacity, and nursery support."},{"archetype_element":"Competitor eligibility boundary","domain_realization":"Legally permitted native sources with documented collection location, chain of custody, identity, viable planting stock, phytosanitary clearance, and sufficient material for the standardized trial."},{"archetype_element":"Contest arena boundary","domain_realization":"Growth, survival, recovery, and competition within assigned plots are legitimate; extra planting, preferential watering or fertilization, label substitution, undeclared treatment, measurement interference, and release outside authorized boundaries are prohibited."},{"archetype_element":"Performance metric and scoring basis","domain_realization":"A preregistered scorecard assesses survival, recovery, bounded growth, consistency across blocks, ecological compatibility, and marginal response diversity across authorized climate-stress treatments."},{"archetype_element":"Fair process and due process layer","domain_realization":"Source codes conceal supplier identity from assessors where feasible; plot assignment is randomized; scoring and missing-data rules are frozen; audits are reproducible; and suppliers may challenge identity, measurement, or protocol errors through an independent review."},{"archetype_element":"Anti-sabotage and anti-collusion guardrail","domain_realization":"Chain-of-custody records, plot-access logs, treatment records, tamper-evident labels, blinded measurements, and graduated fouls protect competitors from substitution, extra inputs, damage, or coordinated misrepresentation."},{"archetype_element":"Externality and spillover boundary","domain_realization":"Pathogen transmission, off-plot establishment, gene-flow risk, effects on understory or wildlife, soil disturbance, water use, and removal obligations remain inside the trial's monitoring and stop rules."},{"archetype_element":"Escalation and arms-race damper","domain_realization":"Equal viable stem counts, standardized stock classes, common inputs, source-level abundance caps, and fixed measurement opportunities constrain escalating propagule supply and preferential nursery expenditure."},{"archetype_element":"Winner power and lock-in review","domain_realization":"No source receives automatic landscape-wide status; deployment shares are capped, evaluation data remain common, reference cohorts persist, and later challenger cohorts can displace an incumbent share."},{"archetype_element":"Learning and recalibration loop","domain_realization":"Observed rank reversals, interactions, harms, measurement failures, and next-stage performance change future treatments, metrics, share caps, eligibility, containment, or the decision to continue."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"contest_rulebook","role":"Freezes source eligibility, trial boundaries, starting conditions, permitted treatments, score components, advancement rules, fouls, tie-breaks, and appeals before planting.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the rulebook, managers or suppliers could alter inputs, measurements, or selection criteria after early performance reveals favored sources."},{"mechanism_slug":"spending_cap_or_resource_cap","role":"Equalizes viable starting stems and caps source-specific space, water, nutrients, replacement stock, and intervention opportunities within the trial.","counterfactual_removal":"Without resource caps, abundance and supplier-funded care could overwhelm competitors, making propagule pressure or expenditure the most reliable route to selection."},{"mechanism_slug":"ranked_leaderboard_with_audit","role":"Produces stage-end comparative standings from the preregistered scorecard while auditing source identity, starting condition, treatment delivery, raw measurements, and leading results before advancement.","counterfactual_removal":"Without audits, mislabeled material, inconsistent treatment, selective mortality recording, or calculation errors could determine which sources advance."},{"mechanism_slug":"multiple_award_or_portfolio_selection","role":"Allocates next-stage planting shares to several sources based on individual floors and complementary responses across stress regimes, subject to a maximum share per source.","counterfactual_removal":"Without portfolio selection, the highest aggregate scorer could displace sources whose distinct response patterns protect the regeneration program against different conditions."},{"mechanism_slug":"sabotage_or_foul_penalty_schedule","role":"Defines graduated consequences for substitution, extra planting, undeclared inputs, plot interference, record fabrication, boundary violations, and repeated protocol breaches.","counterfactual_removal":"Without predefined consequences, manipulation or interference could remain advantageous whenever ecological competition alone cannot expose it."},{"mechanism_slug":"challenger_access_window","role":"Reserves later trial cohorts and periodic deployment-share reviews for newly qualified sources or sources supported by improved evidence.","counterfactual_removal":"Without challenger access, an early selected source could convert initial deployment, nursery capacity, and data familiarity into permanent dominance unrelated to continuing contribution."},{"mechanism_slug":"post_contest_impact_review","role":"Compares trial scores with next-stage establishment, competitive interactions, ecological effects, concentration, and containment outcomes before further deployment.","counterfactual_removal":"Without ex-post review, early metrics that selected the wrong traits or missed ecological harms could continue governing later planting decisions."}],"causal_chain":["A restoration program has fewer planting positions than eligible native seed-source populations, creating a scarce selection prize.","Seed sources placed together also compete biologically for light, water, nutrients, and establishment space.","If starting abundance, nursery inputs, and evaluation horizons are unbounded, rapid early capture becomes a route to both plot dominance and managerial selection.","Early dominance suppresses observation of slower or differently adapted sources, while a single aggregate ranking hides response diversity across environmental regimes.","A frozen protocol, randomized blocks, equal starting resources, blinded measurements, and enforceable fouls bound both biological and supplier strategies.","Replicated stress treatments and audited scoring distinguish density effects, treatment artifacts, and condition-specific performance from reproducible contribution.","Multiple-source selection rewards minimum individual performance plus complementary response patterns, preventing one early leader from automatically taking the entire deployment prize.","Deployment-share caps, contained first stages, retained references, and challenger cohorts limit ecological spillovers and winner lock-in.","Post-stage review tests whether selected sources retain their expected contribution in interaction; failures trigger reweighting, replacement, containment, or termination."],"baseline":"Managers select a familiar source through expert prescription, choose the highest early performer from a conventional common-garden trial, or sow an operational mixture without governing starting abundance and competitive interactions. Evaluation may emphasize survival and growth averaged across plots, with limited portfolio scoring, source-share caps, challenger access, explicit fouls, reproductive containment, or post-selection review of whether early rank predicted later ecological contribution.","nearest_rivals":["Climate-envelope matching by experts: selects sources from modeled future similarity without deliberately governing competition among them; it may be preferable when field rivalry would add little information or pose unacceptable ecological risk.","Conventional common-garden trial: compares sources under shared conditions but can remain an observational ranking exercise without resource caps, mixed-source interactions, portfolio prizes, foul controls, or recurring challenger access.","Local-source-only prescription: avoids some movement and gene-flow concerns by restricting deployment to nearby material, but does not test whether several eligible local populations make complementary contributions under changing conditions.","Unscored mixed-source planting: preserves diversity by sowing several sources together, but allows propagule pressure and early competitive exclusion to determine composition without an explicit selection purpose or contestable evidence process.","Sequential adaptive planting without rivalry: deploys small cohorts and updates choices from outcomes, providing learning but not a common bounded arena for comparative performance and interaction."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The proposal's limited contrastive claim is that, when a restoration program deliberately uses competition among eligible native seed sources to inform scarce planting shares, equalized starting resources, replicated stress arenas, audited multi-dimensional scoring, complementary portfolio selection, deployment caps, containment, due process, and challenger cohorts keep the route to selection more closely tied to durable ecological contribution than unmanaged early dominance. Its practical performance is untested.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"Only the land manager, research authority, phytosanitary authority, and other bodies already empowered over the site and plant material may approve a contained trial. The arena cannot override protected-species rules, seed-transfer restrictions, tribal authority, landowner consent, biosecurity requirements, or environmental review.","authorized_first_step":"Run a contained bench, nursery, or fenced microplot study using only already permitted, traceable native sources. Pre-register equal starting stock, randomization, stress treatments, measurements, containment, stop rules, and analysis before planting; prevent reproduction or remove reproductive structures as authorized; and make no landscape deployment decision from this first stage.","excluded_actions":["Landscape-scale planting or commercial deployment","Introducing a non-native, prohibited, gene-edited, untraceable, or phytosanitarily uncleared source","Collecting seed or other material without existing legal authority and required consent","Removing intact habitat or displacing protected organisms to create trial space","Allowing trial material to reproduce, disperse, or establish outside the authorized containment boundary","Applying undeclared pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation, inoculants, or other source-specific treatments","Automating source selection or treating the score as authority to bypass ecological or cultural review","Penalizing a supplier without documented investigation and an appeal opportunity"],"halt_rollback":"Stop affected trial blocks if identity or chain of custody fails, a regulated or unexpected pathogen is detected, trial material escapes containment, unauthorized reproduction occurs, protected receptors are harmed, treatments cannot be delivered comparably, mortality makes comparison uninterpretable, or source effects cannot be separated from plot artifacts. Quarantine material where required, prevent further propagation, remove or destroy trial stock only under authorized biosecurity procedures, restore disturbed plots where feasible, void affected rankings, and retain an access-controlled incident record."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"The strongest counterevidence would show that equalizing starting abundance and inputs does not change source rank, mixed-source interactions do not suppress or reverse performance, one source performs consistently across authorized stress regimes without harmful concentration, source identity and treatments are already reliably audited, and portfolio selection provides no additional interpretable response diversity over the baseline prescription.","problem_falsifier":"The inferred problem is falsified for the tested program if planting space is not scarce, sources do not compete materially, starting abundance and supplier inputs are already equal, early measurements reliably predict later contribution across conditions, alternative sources are not suppressed before evaluation, and selected material does not acquire durable deployment advantage.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified as a useful selection design if contained trials cannot represent field competition, block and treatment effects overwhelm source effects, rankings are irreproducible, portfolio criteria select weak but merely different sources, source identity cannot be maintained, containment risks are unacceptable, or the time and monitoring burden closes the practical regeneration window.","risks":["Contained or short-duration trials may not represent mature forest interactions or rare climate events.","Equal starting stem counts may not equalize seedling size, stored reserves, maternal effects, or nursery history.","A growth ceiling intended to prevent dominance could penalize legitimately useful productivity.","Stress treatments may privilege traits relevant to the experiment but not to future field conditions.","Portfolio scoring may preserve a source whose errors or weaknesses are different rather than complementary.","Tagged or spatially separated plants may interact differently from operational regeneration.","Source-share caps can dilute a consistently suitable source or create operational seed-supply complexity.","Phytosanitary screening cannot guarantee that every pathogen or symbiont risk is detected.","Preventing reproduction in early stages limits evidence about recruitment and gene flow.","Public standings may encourage suppliers to concentrate collection or nursery investment on scored traits.","Blinding may fail when sources have visible morphology or distinctive handling requirements.","Removing escaped or harmful material may itself disturb soil, habitat, or neighboring organisms.","Long evaluation periods may delay regeneration while short periods favor early traits.","Climate uncertainty may make the chosen treatment set an inadequate representation of future conditions."]},"next_evidence_step":"Pre-register a contained first-stage comparison using a small set of already authorized sources and replicated single-source and mixed-source blocks. Record chain of custody, initial condition, viable stem count, treatment delivery, survival, bounded growth, stress response, recovery, competitive suppression, ecological observations, measurement disagreement, and containment incidents. Test whether rankings change after equalizing starting resources, across treatments, and between isolated and mixed blocks; compare single-winner and constrained portfolio selections through sensitivity analysis. Do not authorize broader planting, reproductive release, or an effectiveness claim from this evidence.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Proposal 1 governed jurisdictions competing for public adaptation capital and addressed project-local flood-risk scoring through a basin-wide funding portfolio. Proposal 4 instead governs physical competition among native seed-source populations for establishment space and later planting share; no grant allocation or municipal project comparison is required. Proposal 2 governed model teams competing for operational forecast status through sealed evaluation, compute caps, and forecast ensembles. Although Proposal 4 also uses audited comparison and multiple selection, its causal problem is biological suppression and propagule-pressure dominance in living trials, its evidence comes from controlled ecological interactions rather than hidden forecast periods, and its prize is bounded physical deployment rather than forecast authority. Proposal 3 governed water users bidding for temporary drought-season withdrawals through an externality-adjusted auction. Proposal 4 uses no prices, bids, or transfer market: scarce canopy and planting space are assigned from contained ecological performance under equalized resources. It is independently adoptable as a restoration trial without changing adaptation grants, forecast operations, or water rights.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Fourth independently adoptable candidate for the same archetype-domain cell","Material distinction from grant governance, forecast-model selection, and drought-water auctions","Complete specification of ecological competitors, scarce prize, arena, scoring, containment, authority, falsifiers, and bounded evidence"],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version; no parent proposal","Applied bounded rivalry to biological competition among native forest seed-source populations","Made propagule pressure, early competitive exclusion, response diversity, and ecological containment central to the causal path"],"operational_changes":["Specified equal starting resources, randomized single-source and mixed-source blocks, controlled stress treatments, audited identity, complementary deployment shares, source caps, containment, and challenger cohorts","Restricted the first evidence step to already authorized material in a contained bench, nursery, or fenced microplot study"],"evidence_changes":["Prior art remains unsearched","Bounded initial evidence to preregistered observations from contained ecological competition with no landscape deployment"],"claim_changes":["Made no claim of novelty, prevalence, demand, effect size, superior regeneration, or climate resilience","Restricted the claim to a testable governance contrast between bounded ecological rivalry and unmanaged early dominance"]}}