Ecotype analyses need rigor gates before translation

Claim

Ecotype analyses are useful for stratification, but target-selection claims need leakage checks, null distributions, confound adjustment, and independent evidence gates.

Review Brief

What changed: this claim is now a general review rule for host, plant, and environment pages that use ecotype labels.

Why review matters: reviewers should enforce the distinction between exploratory stratification and downstream intervention or target claims.

Evidence to inspect:

• ibd_phage_targeting failure analysis for target-list collapse.
• ecotype_analysis and ecotype_env_reanalysis for label construction.
• docs/pitfalls.md for modality and cohort caveats.
• Ecotype Label Validation Benchmark for the next validation path.

Questions for reviewers:

• Which downstream pages use ecotypes for stratification versus action?
• Are null models and held-out validations required before every translational claim?
• Should ecotype-derived products carry a validation-tier field?
• What evidence would let a specific ecotype claim move from cautionary to reviewed?

Evidence

The IBD phage-targeting memory entries document target-list collapse and plan-review issues caused by feature leakage, missing nulls, and confound mismatch.

Why It Matters

This claim protects downstream clinical, phage, FMT, antibiotic, and formulation design work from plausible but fragile narratives.