# Study 000M

## Name

`Ecological Narrowing Hypothesis`

## Status

`Study complete.`

## Core Question

`Is ecological narrowing itself part of the compensation phenotype?`

## Why This Study Exists

The archive already supports:

- selective expression
- operating envelope behavior
- support-dependent successful expression
- multiple successful low-burden modes

What remains unresolved is whether the system adapted partly by reorganizing its ecological usage pattern around those constraints, rather than only by changing within a fixed ecology.

## Headline Finding

`Yes, supported.`

The archive is better explained by `selective ecological narrowing as part of the compensation phenotype` than by incidental ecological drift alone.

The narrowing was not a total collapse into one place or one activity form.

It was a more specific reorganization:

- successful running expression became more concentrated
- treadmill share inside running increased
- outdoor running share contracted
- late running specialization remained distinct even after hybrid-cardio correction
- some non-running support ecology was still retained rather than erased
- low-burden expression depended increasingly on successful ecological support

## Key Outputs

- `reports/STUDY000M_ARCHITECTURE.md`
- `reports/STUDY000M_RESULTS.md`
- `reports/STUDY000M_DISCUSSION.md`
- `reports/STUDY000M_METHODS.md`
- `reports/STUDY000M_LIMITATIONS.md`
- `reports/STUDY000M_PLAIN_LANGUAGE_SUMMARY.md`
- `reports/STUDY000M_AUDIT.md`
- `reports/STUDY000M_ABSTRACT.md`
- `manuscript/STUDY000M_STUDY_PLAN.md`
- `manuscript/STUDY000M_MANUSCRIPT.md`
- `outputs/study000m_evidence_map.csv`
- `outputs/study000m_primary_answer.csv`
- `outputs/study000m_claim_tests.csv`
- `outputs/study000m_scope_claims.csv`
- `source_tables/`
- `figures/`

## Intended Role

`000M` is the next empirical flagship after `000K`.

It asks whether ecological narrowing should be interpreted as:

- a side effect of adaptation
- or part of the compensation phenotype itself