Reproducible LSOG mapping for Maine: design-based estimation, an FIA-anchored 10 m product, and an apples-to-apples comparison with the Hagan et al. (2026) LiDAR map

This version extends the prior deposit with a reproducible, FIA-anchored late-successional and old-growth (LSOG) mapping workflow for Maine and a fully like-for-like comparison with the published LiDAR classification of Hagan et al. (2026, Ecosphere). Contents. (1) Design-based FIA estimates of older-forest area with confidence intervals and the multi-axis structural classification. (2) An open, FIA-anchored 10 m LSOG probability product over the study area built from learned satellite embeddings (TESSERA), with a full-AOI mosaic, a Big Reed/Baxter showcase, and a resolution sweep (10-200 m) documenting the dependence of the estimate on map grain. (3) A faithful reproduction of the published LiDAR map from its own public archived inputs (random forest on the 463 training hectares applied to the public hectare-level LiDAR canopy statistics), reproducing the reported any-LSOG extent within ~2 percentage points (22.0% vs 19.7%). (4) An apples-to-apples comparison: at matched landscape prevalence the reproduced LiDAR map and the FIA-anchored embedding map agree on location only weakly (Cohen's kappa ~0.19), with a Seven Islands/Pingree comparison against the authors' own map at kappa 0.24. (5) A remote-sensing feature-fusion benchmark (TESSERA, AlphaEarth, Landsat/Potapov canopy height, Meta canopy height) and the documented-old-growth validation layer compiled from the 1983 and 1986 Maine Critical Areas Program inventories. Note. FIA plot coordinates are restricted and are not included; only derived rasters, aggregate tables, and code are released. v3.0.0 adds the completed full-study-area 10 m LSOG probability map (LSOG_probability_10m_fullstudyarea.tif; 29,083 x 29,162 px, ~848 million 10 m cells, EPSG:32619), the wall-to-wall fused TESSERA product over the entire Hagan study footprint, plus the refreshed technical report and briefing deck. v3.0.1 applies minor corrections from a final stress test of the technical report (a stale AUC value reconciled to the fusion benchmark, an any-LSOG class label, a citation-year consistency fix, and an AUC-range wording fix). Data products are unchanged. v3.0.1 applies minor corrections from a final stress test of the technical report (a stale AUC value reconciled to the fusion benchmark, an any-LSOG class label, a citation-year consistency fix, and an AUC-range wording fix). Data products are unchanged. v3.0.1 applies minor corrections from a final stress test of the technical report (a stale AUC value reconciled to the fusion benchmark, an any-LSOG class label, a citation-year consistency fix, and an AUC-range wording fix). Data products are unchanged. v3.0.1 applies minor corrections from a final stress test of the technical report (a stale AUC value reconciled to the fusion benchmark, an any-LSOG class label, a citation-year consistency fix, and an AUC-range wording fix). Data products are unchanged. v3.0.5 applies two source-fidelity refinements after a line-by-line re-review against Hagan et al. (2026). The reproduced classifier's any-LSOG figure (21.9%) is labelled as a fraction of forested hectares on the common comparison grid, alongside the published map's own any-LSOG of 19.7% of the full study area; and the manuscript describes mapped LSOG as 'lost' rather than 'harvested' to match the Global Forest Watch loss terminology. Data products are unchanged. v3.0.6 finalizes the technical report: confidence reported as High/Medium/Low with a defining legend, softened absolute language, an independent general-assessment framing (not prepared for any single organization) with a date, professional layout (centered table cells, justified body text, tables and captions kept together), and revised figures (Fig 5 with block-bootstrap 95% CIs; Fig 6 a two-panel comparison of our estimate with the reproduced Hagan model; Fig 7 expanded with a remote-sensing attribute-contribution panel; Fig 8 a forest-masked two-panel showing the reproduced Hagan map beside our 10 m map with county, Baxter, and Big Reed reference). Data products are unchanged. v3.0.7 adds final report refinements: green/amber/red shading of the High/Medium/Low confidence cells; a definition of the v5.1 structural classifier; a new Conclusions section with specific research, policy, and conservation suggestions; Figure 1 clipped to the Maine land area so the GEDI panel no longer extends beyond the state; and Figure 8 forest-masked with the FIA nearest-neighbor forest/non-forest mask (Wilson et al. 2012). Data products are unchanged. v3.0.8 adds the forest-masked wall-to-wall 10 m LSOG probability raster (LSOG_probability_10m_forestmasked.tif): the full 10 m surface with non-forest and open water set to no-data using the FIA nearest-neighbor forest/non-forest mask (Wilson et al. 2012, 2009 vintage; 473.4 of 848.1 million cells retained as forest). The full unmasked surface (LSOG_probability_10m_fullstudyarea.tif) is retained. Report Figure 8 caption updated accordingly. v3.0.9 revises the technical report: an expanded Background placing the work in the national (CONUS) context of mature and old-growth mapping (federal executive order and inventory, Pelz et al. 2023 criteria, GEDI/Potapov canopy height, continental old-growth products), with the framing that independent methods can be learned from collectively; the original study is referred to by its publication rather than by author name throughout the text and figures; recommendations are grouped by category and ranked High/Medium/Low (with color shading); and a cleaner professional layout (flowing sections with ruled headings, reduced blank space). Data products are unchanged. v3.1.0 polishes the report layout and structure: a page-numbered Contents with dot leaders; a page break so the Executive Summary stands alone before Background; Section 5 retitled and rebalanced to weight policy implications equally with economic ones; the Recommendations table redrawn with merged category bands (no repeating category column) and High/Medium/Low priority shading; the Appendix moved to the end after References; and minor wording refinements. Data products are unchanged. v3.1.1 adds a data-driven classification-threshold analysis (new Figure 9) computed in R (ranger out-of-bag probabilities on 4,168 true-coordinate plots): panel (a) shows the sensitivity/specificity/precision/F1 trade-off with the Youden-optimal threshold at 0.36 (bootstrap 95% CI 0.29-0.37; max-F1 0.37, 0.36-0.44); panel (b) shows precision collapsing with base rate at fixed model skill (AUC 0.87), from about 51% on the training set to about 11% at the 3% four-axis prevalence and under 1% for the 0.2% old-growth class, illustrating the central difficulty of mapping a rare condition. Data products are unchanged. v3.1.2 renames the report file to CRSF_LSOG_Technical_Report (from MFPC_*); adds a limitations-table row noting the published map's single hard class from a default majority-vote threshold with no cutpoint chosen for the rare old-growth class (tied to Figure 9); and a layout pass that lets figures flow to fill pages, removing odd partial-page gaps while keeping captions intact. Data products are unchanged. v3.1.3 updates and renames the briefing deck (MFPC_LSOG_Briefing -> CRSF_LSOG_Briefing) to align with the report: de-named to the publication, general (non-MFPC) framing, national/CONUS context, the updated and forest-masked figures (Maine-clipped four-map comparison, two-panel Sobol plus attribute-contribution ladder, ours-vs-published plot maps, the forest-masked 10 m map, and the rare-class threshold figure), the default-vote limitation row, and recommendations tagged by High/Medium priority. Data products are unchanged. v3.1.4 restructures the briefing deck into a 12-slide main narrative (title, why, five findings, how much with intervals, the count depends on definition, maps disagree, the fused 10 m map, the rare-class classification challenge, stock stable-to-rising, conservation context, recommendations, and a closing slide) followed by a 'Supplemental material' divider and the detailed limitation-by-limitation and methods slides. Content unchanged from v3.1.3; reorganized for a briefing audience. v3.1.5 adds a PDF rendering of the briefing deck (CRSF_LSOG_Briefing.pdf) alongside the editable PowerPoint. No content change. v3.2.0 revises the Comment (Ecosphere_Comment_Hagan_FINAL.docx) and the Northeast manuscript (Northeast_LSOG_Manuscript_V2.docx) following coauthor review: the national mature and old-growth mapping context (U.S. Executive Order 14072, 2022) now leads, the four structural thresholds are specified as conservative lower benchmarks, the disturbance-vulnerability framing is removed, references (DellaSala et al. 2022; Barnett et al. 2023; Gray et al. 2023) are added and CrossRef-verified, and all numbers are reconciled with the CRSF technical report. PDF renderings of both documents are added. No change to the data, code, or rasters.