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Paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera (L.) L’Hér. ex Vent. (Moraceae), a dioecious species, was transported by humans from Taiwan to the islands of Remote Oceania. Its introduction and cultivation in Remote Oceania was intentional due to its cultural importance as a fiber source for barkcloth textiles. The aim of this study was to explore the genetic diversity and structure of paper mulberry populations within Remote Oceania in order to infer dispersal patterns that may reflect past human interaction among island groups. We present the integrated analysis of 380 samples (313 contemporary and 67 herbarium specimens) collected in Near and Remote Oceania. Genetic characterization was based on a set of ten microsatellites developed for B. papyrifera and complemented with the analysis of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer ITS-1 sequence, a sex marker and the chloroplast ndhF–rpl32 intergenic spacer. Microsatellite data identify a total of 64 genotypes, despite this being a clonally propagated crop, and show three major dispersal hubs within Remote Oceania, centered on the islands of Fiji, Tonga, and Pitcairn. Of 64 genotypes identified, 55 correspond to genotypes associated to female-sexed plants that probably descend from plants introduced by the prehistoric Austronesian-speaking voyagers. The ratio of accessions to genotypes between herbarium and contemporary samples, suggests recent loss of genetic diversity. In addition to the chloroplast haplotypes described previously, we detected two new haplotypes within Remote Oceania both originating in Taiwan. This is the first study of a commensal species to show genetic structuring within Remote Oceania. In spite of the genetic bottleneck, the presence of only one sex, a timespan of less than 5000 years, and asexual propagation of this crop in Remote Oceania, we detect genetic diversity and regional structuring. These observations suggest specific migration routes between island groups within Remote Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swarm-founding wasps are endemic and common representatives of neotropical fauna and compose an interesting social tribe of vespids, presenting both complex social characteristics and uncommon traits for a eusocial group, such as the absence of castes with distinct morphology. The paper wasp Protonectarina sylveirae (Saussure) presents a broad distribution from Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, occurring widespread in the Atlantic rainforest and arboreal Caatinga, being absent in the Amazon region. Given the peculiar distribution among swarm-founding wasps, an integrative approach to reconstruct the evolutionary history of P. sylveirae in a spatial-temporal framework was performed to investigate: the presence of genetic structure and its relationship with the geography, the evolution of distinct morphologic lineages and the possible historical event(s) in Neotropical region, which could explain the observed phylogeographic pattern. Individuals of P. sylveirae were obtained from populations of 16 areas throughout its distribution for DNA extraction and amplification of mitochondrial genes 12S, 16S and COI. Analysis of genetic diversity, construction of haplotype net, analysis of population structure and dating analysis of divergence time were performed. A morphometric analysis was also performed using 8 measures of the body of the adult (workers) to test if there are morphological distinction among populations. Thirty-five haplotypes were identified, most of them exclusively of a group and a high population structure was found. The possibility of genetic divergence because of isolation by distance was rejected. Morphological analysis pointed to a great uniformity in phenotypes, with only a small degree of differentiation between populations of south and the remaining. Divergence time analysis showed a Middle/Late Miocene origin, a period where an extensive marine ingression occurred in South America. Divergence of haplogroups began from the Plio/Pleistocene boundary and the last glacial maximum most likely modeled the current distribution of species, even though it was not the cause of genetic breaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The safety of highly aggregated tourist crowds is a challenging and important issue. This paper not only provided a comprehensive analysis of the accidents of highly aggregated tourist crowds but also determined the occurrence mechanism and coping paths. Based on the analysis of multiple cases, we found that the variable status of highly aggregated tourist crowds was the result of the interaction of three main elements: multisource pressure, state mutations and management responses. A series of factors interact and result in accidents, and the lack of a management response or a low-quality management response is the root cause of such accidents. A high-quality management response is a basic safety precaution for highly aggregated tourist crowds. Therefore, forming a virtuous circle of multisource pressure, state mutations and management responses is an effective path for coping with accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are chemicals that negatively impact endocrine system function, with effluent from paper mills one example of this class of chemicals. In Florida, female Eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) have been observed with male secondary sexual characteristics at three paper mill-impacted sites, indicative of EDC exposure, and are still found at one site on the Fenholloway River. The potential impacts that paper mill effluent exposure has on the G. holbrooki endocrine system and the stream ecosystem are unknown. The objective of this study was to use gene expression analysis to determine if exposure to an androgen receptor agonist was occurring and to couple this analysis with in vitro assays to evaluate the presence of androgen and progesterone receptor active chemicals in the Fenholloway River. Focused gene expression analyses of masculinized G. holbrooki from downstream of the Fenholloway River paper mill were indicative of androgen exposure, while genes related to reproduction indicated potential progesterone exposure. Hepatic microarray analysis revealed an increase in the expression of metabolic genes in Fenholloway River fish, with similarities in genes and biological processes compared to G. holbrooki exposed to androgens. Water samples collected downstream of the paper mill and at a reference site indicated that progesterone and androgen receptor active chemicals were present at both sites, which corroborates previous chemical analyses. Results indicate that G. holbrooki downstream of the Fenholloway River paper mill are impacted by a mixture of both androgens and progesterones. This research provides data on the mechanisms of how paper mill effluents in Florida are acting as endocrine disruptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dispersal knowledge is essential for conservation management, and demand is growing. But are we accumulating dispersal knowledge at a pace that can meet the demand? To answer this question we tested for changes in dispersal data collection and use over time. Our systematic review of 655 conservation-related publications compared five topics: climate change, habitat restoration, population viability analysis, land planning (systematic conservation planning) and invasive species. We analysed temporal changes in the: (i) questions asked by dispersal-related research; (ii) methods used to study dispersal; (iii) the quality of dispersal data; (iv) extent that dispersal knowledge is lacking, and; (v) likely consequences of limited dispersal knowledge. Research questions have changed little over time; the same problems examined in the 1990s are still being addressed. The most common methods used to study dispersal were occupancy data, expert opinion and modelling, which often provided indirect, low quality information about dispersal. Although use of genetics for estimating dispersal has increased, new ecological and genetic methods for measuring dispersal are not yet widely adopted. Almost half of the papers identified knowledge gaps related to dispersal. Limited dispersal knowledge often made it impossible to discover ecological processes or compromised conservation outcomes. The quality of dispersal data used in climate change research has increased since the 1990s. In comparison, restoration ecology inadequately addresses large-scale process, whilst the gap between knowledge accumulation and growth in applications may be increasing in land planning. To overcome apparent stagnation in collection and use of dispersal knowledge, researchers need to: (i) improve the quality of available data using new approaches; (ii) understand the complementarities of different methods and; (iii) define the value of different kinds of dispersal information for supporting management decisions. Ambitious, multi-disciplinary research programs studying many species are critical for advancing dispersal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use change (LUC) is a main cause of global environmental change, and is an important activity to be studied. Our research aims to examine the current state of evidence on the link between LUC and human health in the Amazon region. We conducted a scoping review of literature in two research databases, resulting in 14 papers for analysis. Our analysis demonstrated a lack of clear definitions for LUC, a wide variety of negative health effects from LUC, the lack of qualitative articles, a lack of studies exploring the potential positive health effects of LUC, and the predominance of studies coming from the Brazilian Amazon. Our study validated the prevailing idea that LUC can lead to negative health consequences, if not managed properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last several decades have witnessed a shift in the way in which news is delivered and consumed by users. With the growth and advancements in mobile technologies, the Internet, and Web 2.0 technologies users are not only consumers of news, but also producers of online content. This has resulted in a novel and highly participatory cyber-physical news awareness ecosystem that fosters digital activism, in which volunteers contribute content to online communities. While studies have examined the various components of this news awareness ecosystem, little is still known about how news media coverage (and in particular digital media) impacts digital activism. In order to address this challenge and develop a greater understanding of it, this paper focuses on a specific form of digital activism, that of the production of digital geographical content through crowdsourcing efforts. Using refugee camps from around the world as a case study, we examine the relationship between news coverage (via Google news), search trends (via Google trends) and user edit contribution patterns in OpenStreetMap, a prominent geospatial data crowdsourcing platform. In addition, we compare and contrast these patterns with user edit patterns in Wikipedia, a well-known non-geospatial crowdsourcing platform. Using Google news and Google trends to derive a measure of thematic public awareness, our findings indicate that digital activism bursts tend to take place during periods of sustained build-up of public awareness deficit or surplus. These findings are in line with two prominent mass communication theories: agenda setting and corrective action, and suggest the emergence of a novel stimulus-awareness-activism framework in today’s participatory digital age. Moreover, these findings further complement existing research examining the motivational factors that drive users to contribute to online collaborative communities. This paper brings us one step closer to understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive digital activism in particular in the geospatial domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The body of science evaluating the potential impacts of unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) has grown significantly in recent years, although many data gaps remain. Still, a broad empirical understanding of the impacts is beginning to emerge amidst a swell of research. The present categorical assessment provides an overview of the peer-reviewed scientific literature from 2009–2015 as it relates to the potential impacts of UNGD on public health, water quality, and air quality. We have categorized all available original research during this time period in an attempt to understand the weight and direction of the scientific literature. Our results indicate that at least 685 papers have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that are relevant to assessing the impacts of UNGD. 84% of public health studies contain findings that indicate public health hazards, elevated risks, or adverse health outcomes; 69% of water quality studies contain findings that indicate potential, positive association, or actual incidence of water contamination; and 87% of air quality studies contain findings that indicate elevated air pollutant emissions and/or atmospheric concentrations. This paper demonstrates that the weight of the findings in the scientific literature indicates hazards and elevated risks to human health as well as possible adverse health outcomes associated with UNGD. There are limitations to this type of assessment and it is only intended to provide a snapshot of the scientific knowledge based on the available literature. However, this work can be used to identify themes that lie in or across studies, to prioritize future research, and to provide an empirical foundation for policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensembles are a well established machine learning paradigm, leading to accurate and robust models, predominantly applied to predictive modeling tasks. Ensemble models comprise a finite set of diverse predictive models whose combined output is expected to yield an improved predictive performance as compared to an individual model. In this paper, we propose a new method for learning ensembles of process-based models of dynamic systems. The process-based modeling paradigm employs domain-specific knowledge to automatically learn models of dynamic systems from time-series observational data. Previous work has shown that ensembles based on sampling observational data (i.e., bagging and boosting), significantly improve predictive performance of process-based models. However, this improvement comes at the cost of a substantial increase of the computational time needed for learning. To address this problem, the paper proposes a method that aims at efficiently learning ensembles of process-based models, while maintaining their accurate long-term predictive performance. This is achieved by constructing ensembles with sampling domain-specific knowledge instead of sampling data. We apply the proposed method to and evaluate its performance on a set of problems of automated predictive modeling in three lake ecosystems using a library of process-based knowledge for modeling population dynamics. The experimental results identify the optimal design decisions regarding the learning algorithm. The results also show that the proposed ensembles yield significantly more accurate predictions of population dynamics as compared to individual process-based models. Finally, while their predictive performance is comparable to the one of ensembles obtained with the state-of-the-art methods of bagging and boosting, they are substantially more efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recreational fishing is often perceived as harmless when it comes to fisheries management, and its impact often estimated to surpass the economic outcomes of e.g. large-scale fisheries. Recreational fisheries are often an indication of political stability and sound ecosystem management. However, despite a high economic impact, the economic costs on traditional and small-scale commercial fishers is yet to be known. This paper answers the question of how unregulated recreational fisheries could rather generate a loss to an economy, and cause unfair competition with existing commercial sectors using the example of Algeria. This paper assesses catches and economic value of recreational fisheries in Algeria, and finds that over 6,000 tonnes reach commercial markets annually, competing directly with the small-scale artisanal sector, while selling recreationally caught fish is still illegal. The paper further finds that the public is thereby deprived—through lost tax, licence income and landed value of $45 million US annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the consequences of ignoring the clustered data structure on allometric models. Clustered data, in the form of multiple trees sampled from multiple forest stands is commonly used to develop biomass allometric models. Of 102 reviewed papers published between 2012 and 2016 that reported biomass allometric models, 84 (82%) have used a clustered sampling design. However, in as many as 80% of these, the clustered data structure was ignored, potentially violating the independence assumption in ordinary least squares methods. The consequences of ignoring clustered data structure were empirically validated using two clustered biomass datasets (of 110 and 220 trees, with the cluster size of 5 and 10 trees respectively). We showed that when Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was higher than zero, ignoring the clustered data structure returned underestimated standard errors, affecting further the confidence interval and t-test results. The underestimation level depended on ICC (which shows the variance proportion that was caused by the forest stand) and on cluster size (the number of trees sampled from one forest stand). We also showed that using first-order autocorrelation tests, such as the traditional Durbin-Watson statistic, to detect the autocorrelation due to clustered structure could be misleading as the test may show lack of autocorrelation even though ICC is different from zero. In conclusion, when ICC is higher than zero, ignoring the clustered data structure yields over-confident biomass predictions (due to underestimated confidence interval) and/or incorrect research conclusions (due to overestimated evidence against null hypothesis in t-test). Therefore, using a modelling approach that accounts for the hierarchical structure of the data is highly recommended when any form of clustering can be identified, even if the autocorrelation is not significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local and indigenous knowledge is being transformed globally, particularly being eroded when pertaining to ecology. In many parts of the world, rural and indigenous communities are facing tremendous cultural, economic and environmental changes, which contribute to weaken their local knowledge base. In the face of profound and ongoing environmental changes, both cultural and biological diversity are likely to be severely impacted as well as local resilience capacities from this loss. In this global literature review, we analyse the drivers of various types of local and indigenous ecological knowledge transformation and assess the directionality of the reported change. Results of this analysis show a global impoverishment of local and indigenous knowledge with 77% of papers reporting the loss of knowledge driven by globalization, modernization, and market integration. The recording of this loss, however, is not symmetrical, with losses being recorded more strongly in medicinal and ethnobotanical knowledge. Persistence of knowledge (15% of the studies) occurred in studies where traditional practices were being maintained consiously and where hybrid knowledge was being produced as a resut of certain types of incentives created by economic development. This review provides some insights into local and indigenous ecological knowledge change, its causes and implications, and recommends venues for the development of replicable and comparative research. The larger implication of these results is that because of the interconnection between cultural and biological diversity, the loss of local and indigenous knowledge is likely to critically threaten effective conservation of biodiversity, particularly in community-based conservation local efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in urban residential density represent an important issue in terms of land consumption, the conservation of ecosystems, air quality and related human health problems, as well as the consequential challenges for urban and regional planning. It is the decline of residential densities, in particular, that has often been used as the very definition of sprawl, describing a phenomenon that has been extensively studied in the United States and in Western Europe. Whilst these studies provide valuable insights into urbanization processes, only a handful of them have reflected the uneven dynamics of simultaneous urban growth and shrinkage, using residential density changes as a key indicator to uncover the underlying dynamics. This paper introduces a contrasting analysis of recent developments in both de- and re-concentration, defined as decreasing or increasing residential densities, respectively. Using a large sample of European cities, it detects differences in density changes between successional population growth/decline. The paper shows that dedensification, found in some large cities globally, is not a universal phenomenon in growing urban areas; neither the increasing disproportion between a declining demand for and an increasing supply of residential areas nor actual concentration processes in cities were found. Thus, the paper provides a new, very detailed perspective on (de)densification in both shrinking and growing cities and how they specifically contribute to current land take in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer-reviewed publication volume and caliber are widely-recognized proxies for academic merit, and a strong publication record is essential for academic success and advancement. However, recent work suggests that publication productivity for particular author groups may also be determined in part by implicit biases lurking in the publication pipeline. Here, we explore patterns of gender, geography, and institutional rank among authors, editorial board members, and handling editors in high-impact ecological publications during 2015 and 2016. A higher proportion of lead authors had female first names (33.9%) than editorial board members (28.9%), and the proportion of female first names among handling editors was even lower (21.1%). Female editors disproportionately edited publications with female lead authors (40.3% of publications with female lead authors were handled by female editors, though female editors handled only 34.4% of all studied publications). Additionally, ecological authors and editors were overwhelmingly from countries in the G8, and high-ranking academic institutions accounted for a large portion of both the published work, and its editorship. Editors and lead authors with female names were typically affiliated with higher-ranking institutions than their male peers. This description of author and editor features provides a baseline for benchmarking future trends in the ecological publishing culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publication metadata help deliver rich analyses of scholarly communication. However, research concepts and ideas are more effectively expressed through unstructured fields such as full texts. Thus, the goals of this paper are to employ a full-text enabled method to extract terms relevant to disciplinary vocabularies, and through them, to understand the relationships between disciplines. This paper uses an efficient, domain-independent term extraction method to extract disciplinary vocabularies from a large multidisciplinary corpus of PLoS ONE publications. It finds a power-law pattern in the frequency distributions of terms present in each discipline, indicating a semantic richness potentially sufficient for further study and advanced analysis. The salient relationships amongst these vocabularies become apparent in application of a principal component analysis. For example, Mathematics and Computer and Information Sciences were found to have similar vocabulary use patterns along with Engineering and Physics; while Chemistry and the Social Sciences were found to exhibit contrasting vocabulary use patterns along with the Earth Sciences and Chemistry. These results have implications to studies of scholarly communication as scholars attempt to identify the epistemological cultures of disciplines, and as a full text-based methodology could lead to machine learning applications in the automated classification of scholarly work according to disciplinary vocabularies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In connection to food insecurity, adaptation of new techniques or alteration of regular behavior is executed that translates to coping strategies. This paper has used data from food security and nutrition surveillance project (FSNSP), which collects information from a nationally representative sample in Bangladesh on coping behaviors associated with household food insecurity. To complement the current understanding of different coping strategies implemented by the Bangladeshi households, the objective of this paper has been set to examine the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the food insecure households which define their propensity towards adaptation of different types of coping strategies. Methodology: FSNSP follows a repeated cross-sectional survey design. Information of 23,374 food insecure households available from February 2011 to November 2013 was selected for the analyses. Coping strategies were categorized as financial, food compromised and both. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to draw inference. Results: Majority of the households were significantly more inclined to adopt both multiple financial and food compromisation coping strategies. Post-aman season, educational status of the household head and household women, occupation of the household’s main earner, household income, food insecurity status, asset, size and possession of agricultural land were found to be independently and significantly associated with adaptation of both financial and food compromisation coping strategies relative to only financial coping strategies. The relative risk ratio of adopting food compromisation coping relative to financial coping strategies when compared to mildly food insecure households, was 4.54 times higher for households with moderate food insecurity but 0.3 times lower when the households were severely food insecure. Whereas, households were 8.04 times and 4.98 times more likely to adopt both food compromisation and financial relative to only financial coping strategies if moderately and severely food insecure respectively when compared to being mildly food insecure. Conclusion: Households suffering from moderate and severe food insecurity, are more likely to adopt both financial and food compromisation coping strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Biosensor-based detection provides a rapid and low-cost alternative to conventional analytical methods for revealing the presence of the contaminants in water as well as solid matrices. Although important to be detected, small analytes (few hundreds of Daltons) are an issue in biosensing since the signal they induce in the transducer, and specifically in a Quartz-Crystal Microbalance, is undetectable. A pesticide like parathion (M = 292 Da) is a typical example of contaminant for which a signal amplification procedure is desirable. Methods/Findings: The ballasting of the analyte by gold nanoparticles has been already applied to heavy target as proteins or bacteria to improve the limit of detection. In this paper, we extend the application of such a method to small analytes by showing that once the working surface of a Quartz-Crystal Microbalance (QCM) has been properly functionalized, a limit of detection lower than 1 ppb is reached for parathion. The effective surface functionalization is achieved by immobilizing antibodies upright oriented on the QCM gold surface by a simple photochemical technique (Photonic Immobilization Technique, PIT) based on the UV irradiation of the antibodies, whereas a simple protocol provided by the manufacturer is applied to functionalize the gold nanoparticles. Thus, in a non-competitive approach, the small analyte is made detectable by weighing it down through a “sandwich protocol” with a second antibody tethered to heavy gold nanoparticles. The immunosensor has been proved to be effective against the parathion while showing no cross reaction when a mixture of compounds very similar to parathion is analyzed. Conclusion/Significance: The immunosensor described in this paper can be easily applied to any small molecule for which polyclonal antibodies are available since both the functionalization procedure of the QCM probe surface and gold nanoparticle can be applied to any IgG, thereby making our device of general application in terms of target analyte. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative analysis of the contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology and analysis of the underlying reasons behind changes provide an important foundation upon which the government can formulate water policies. This paper abandons the assumption of a scale economy and separates the changes of benefits brought about by the scale from scientific and technological progress, thus changing the C-D production function from linear to nonlinear. Based on a feedforward neural network, it calculates the coefficient of the output elasticity, the economic contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology and the scale economies for each year using relevant data from 1981 to 2016. The results show that (1) the average contribution rate of capital investment from 1981 to 2016 was 47.3%, and the average contribution rate of labor from 1981 to 2016 was 9.1%. It is not obvious that the significant increase in the labor force has contributed to the growth of China’s water conservancy industry. (2) The average contribution rate of scale economies in 1981–2016 was 26.7%, and the contribution rate of scale economies is negatively correlated with the capital contribution rate. (3) The average contribution rate of China’s hydraulic science and technology was 43.6% from 1981 to 2016, and the average contribution rate of the total factor productivity after removing scale economies from 1981 to 2016 was 16.9%. During the period of the 6th Five-Year Plan(1981~1985), the contribution rate of water conservancy science and technology was relatively high. Since that time, it has remained at 40%. In recent years, as water conservancy reforms in key areas have made positive progress, scientific and technological progress has increased the growth of water conservancy benefits annually. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is facing severe pressure on its water resources and water environments. Calculating the industrial water efficiency of each province is an important index for the central government to evaluate local governments. In the traditional water resources evaluation index, the industrial water use efficiency and pollutant discharge are evaluated separately. In this paper, we collected industrial input data, output data and pollutant discharge data with a four-stage data envelopment analysis to calculate China's industrial water use efficiency with and without considering pollutant discharge, and then analyzed the factors influencing the industrial water use efficiency. The results show that the eastern coastal provinces of China have the highest water use efficiency and are less affected by pollutant discharge than other provinces. The industrial water use efficiency of the central and western provinces is lower than that of the other provinces, and the industrial water use efficiency in the central provinces is greatly affected by pollutant discharge. Factor endowment, economic development level, scientific and technological progress, industrial structure, proportion of foreign investment, water consumption per 10000 yuan of value-added by industry, industrial sewage treatment capacity and educational investment have a significant influence on the industrial water use efficiency of China. We suggest that the government strengthen the construction of sewage plants and other related infrastructure in central provinces when conducting the industrial transfer of heavy polluting enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the heterogeneous effects of exchange rate and stock market on carbon emission allowance price in four emissions trading scheme pilots in China. We employ a panel quantile regression model, which can describe both individual and distributional heterogeneity. The empirical results illustrate that the effects of explanatory variables on carbon emission allowance price is heterogeneous along the whole quantiles. Specifically, exchange rate has a negative effect on carbon emission allowance price at lower quantiles, while becomes a positive effect at higher quantiles. In addition, a negative effect exists between domestic stock market and carbon emission allowance price, and the intensity decreasing along with the increase of quantile. By contrast, an increasing positive effect is discovered between European stock market and domestic carbon emission allowance prices. Finally, heterogeneous effects on carbon emission allowance price can also be proved in European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining the distribution of the Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis, YFP) in the Yangtze River has to date relied on traditional visual and counting methods, but such field surveys are time-consuming and expensive. Analyses using environmental DNA (eDNA) to investigate the presence and range of endangered aquatic species have proven to be more economical and effective detection methods, and are a non-invasive approach to sampling. A challenge of relying on eDNA for YFP monitoring is that the Yangtze River is characterized by high turbidity and a strong current. Here, we used an eDNA-based approach to estimate the presence of YFP at 18 sites in the Yangtze River in August 2017 and at an additional 11 sites in January 2018. At each sampling site, we filtered six 1 L water samples with 5 µm pore size filter paper and quantified the amount of YFP eDNA in each water sample using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). In addition, YFP eDNA was successfully detected in locations where we visually observed YFP, as well as in locations where YFP were not observed directly. We found that our eDNA-based method had higher detection rates than traditional field survey methods. Although YFP was visually observed in the Yangtze River in winter, water samples collected during the summer contained significantly higher YFP eDNA than winter water samples. Our results demonstrate the potential effectiveness of eDNA detection methods in determining the distribution of YFP in the Yangtze River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change adds an additional layer of complexity to existing sustainable development and biodiversity conservation challenges. The impacts of global climate change are felt locally, and thus local governance structures will increasingly be responsible for preparedness and local responses. Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) options are gaining prominence as relevant climate change solutions. Local government officials seldom have an appropriate understanding of the role of ecosystem functioning in sustainable development goals, or access to relevant climate information. Thus the use of ecosystems in helping people adapt to climate change is limited partially by the lack of information on where ecosystems have the highest potential to do so. To begin overcoming this barrier, Conservation South Africa in partnership with local government developed a socio-ecological approach for identifying spatial EbA priorities at the sub-national level. Using GIS-based multi-criteria analysis and vegetation distribution models, the authors have spatially integrated relevant ecological and social information at a scale appropriate to inform local level political, administrative, and operational decision makers. This is the first systematic approach of which we are aware that highlights spatial priority areas for EbA implementation. Nodes of socio-ecological vulnerability are identified, and the inclusion of areas that provide ecosystem services and ecological resilience to future climate change is innovative. The purpose of this paper is to present and demonstrate a methodology for combining complex information into user-friendly spatial products for local level decision making on EbA. The authors focus on illustrating the kinds of products that can be generated from combining information in the suggested ways, and do not discuss the nuance of climate models nor present specific technical details of the model outputs here. Two representative case studies from rural South Africa demonstrate the replicability of this approach in rural and peri-urban areas of other developing and least developed countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main manifestations of climate change will be increased rainfall variability. How to deal with this in agriculture will be a major societal challenge. In this paper we explore flexibility in land use, through deliberate seasonal adjustments in cropped area, as a specific strategy for coping with rainfall variability. Such adjustments are not incorporated in hydro-meteorological crop models commonly used for food security analyses. Our paper contributes to the literature by making a comprehensive model assessment of inter-annual variability in crop production, including both variations in crop yield and cropped area. The Ganges basin is used as a case study. First, we assessed the contribution of cropped area variability to overall variability in rice and wheat production by applying hierarchical partitioning on time-series of agricultural statistics. We then introduced cropped area as an endogenous decision variable in a hydro-economic optimization model (WaterWise), coupled to a hydrology-vegetation model (LPJmL), and analyzed to what extent its performance in the estimation of inter-annual variability in crop production improved. From the statistics, we found that in the period 1999–2009 seasonal adjustment in cropped area can explain almost 50% of variability in wheat production and 40% of variability in rice production in the Indian part of the Ganges basin. Our improved model was well capable of mimicking existing variability at different spatial aggregation levels, especially for wheat. The value of flexibility, i.e. the foregone costs of choosing not to crop in years when water is scarce, was quantified at 4% of gross margin of wheat in the Indian part of the Ganges basin and as high as 34% of gross margin of wheat in the drought-prone state of Rajasthan. We argue that flexibility in land use is an important coping strategy to rainfall variability in water stressed regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourist satisfaction has always been a crucial research issue in the tourism economy. This paper utilizes the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to analyze the impact of urban tourism satisfaction on urban macroeconomics from a macro perspective, using quarterly data on tourist satisfaction in 35 large and medium-sized cities along with major urban macroeconomic variables. This study is quite distinct from previous research that focused on constructing a tourist satisfaction index and analyzing the influence factors of tourism satisfaction from the perspective of the micro-level internal composition of tourism. The empirical results show: Firstly, in respect of the impact of urban tourists' satisfaction on the GDP income of cities, the SDM and the SDM with a lagged first-order dependent variable (SDM_dlag) show that the short-term and long-term indirect effects of log-tourist satisfaction are significantly positive, indicating that city satisfaction has a significant positive spatial spillover effect on GDP growth in other cities; Secondly, in respect of the influence of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban life in the SDM, the long-term direct and indirect effects of logarithmic satisfaction are significantly positive, implying, in the long run, that tourist satisfaction has a positive intraregional spillover effect and spatial spillover effect on urban living costs; Finally, the SDM_dlag for the regression of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban daily life shows that the short-run direct and indirect effects of city tourist satisfaction are significantly negative, indicating that tourist satisfaction has intra-regional and spatial spillover effects, and its rise will reduce the cost of living expenses in local and other cities in the short term. Overall, we have further elucidated the role of different levels of urban tourist satisfaction in city macroeconomics from the spatial dimension, thereby enriching the existing research on tourist satisfaction to some certain extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an integrated hybrid optimization algorithm for training the radial basis function neural network (RBF NN). Training of neural networks is still a challenging exercise in machine learning domain. Traditional training algorithms in general suffer and trap in local optima and lead to premature convergence, which makes them ineffective when applied for datasets with diverse features. Training algorithms based on evolutionary computations are becoming popular due to their robust nature in overcoming the drawbacks of the traditional algorithms. Accordingly, this paper proposes a hybrid training procedure with differential search (DS) algorithm functionally integrated with the particle swarm optimization (PSO). To surmount the local trapping of the search procedure, a new population initialization scheme is proposed using Logistic chaotic sequence, which enhances the population diversity and aid the search capability. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed RBF hybrid training algorithm, experimental analysis on publicly available 7 benchmark datasets are performed. Subsequently, experiments were conducted on a practical application case for wind speed prediction to expound the superiority of the proposed RBF training algorithm in terms of prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the study of the fungi remains preserved in the waterlogged deposits of the Neolithic site of La Draga. These resources had the potential of being used as food and medicine, but also as tinder. Fire was without a doubt one of the most important resources for past people. It was used for lighting, heating, processing food and other materials, cooking and protection, and also possessed social and ritual significance. Hearths are one of the most common features at archaeological sites, but very often little attention is paid to the question of how these fires were lit, and they are seldom reflected in the archaeological record. In order to produce fire by percussion, an intermediate material is required between the sparks and the fuel. Fruiting bodies of fungi are a potential form of tinder, but are less inclined to be well-preserved than other materials. This paper presents the fungal fruiting bodies found at the Neolithic site of La Draga and discusses the meaning of their presence within the archaeological context of the site and European Prehistory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is ample evidence that biotic factors, such as biotic interactions and dispersal capacity, can affect species distributions and influence species’ responses to climate change. However, little is known about how these factors affect predictions from species distribution models (SDMs) with respect to spatial grain and extent of the models. Objectives: Understanding how spatial scale influences the effects of biological processes in SDMs is important because SDMs are one of the primary tools used by conservation biologists to assess biodiversity impacts of climate change. Data sources and study eligibility criteria: We systematically reviewed SDM studies published from 2003–2015 using ISI Web of Science searches to: (1) determine the current state and key knowledge gaps of SDMs that incorporate biotic interactions and dispersal; and (2) understand how choice of spatial scale may alter the influence of biological processes on SDM predictions. Synthesis methods and limitations: We used linear mixed effects models to examine how predictions from SDMs changed in response to the effects of spatial scale, dispersal, and biotic interactions. Results: There were important biases in studies including an emphasis on terrestrial ecosystems in northern latitudes and little representation of aquatic ecosystems. Our results suggest that neither spatial extent nor grain influence projected climate-induced changes in species ranges when SDMs include dispersal or biotic interactions. Conclusions: We identified several knowledge gaps and suggest that SDM studies forecasting the effects of climate change should: 1) address broader ranges of taxa and locations; and 1) report the grain size, extent, and results with and without biological complexity. The spatial scale of analysis in SDMs did not affect estimates of projected range shifts with dispersal and biotic interactions. However, the lack of reporting on results with and without biological complexity precluded many studies from our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging Bicycle Sharing System (BSS) provides a new social microscope that allows us to “photograph” the main aspects of the society and to create a comprehensive picture of human mobility behavior in this new medium. BSS has been deployed in many major cities around the world as a short-distance trip supplement for public transportations and private vehicles. A unique value of the bike flow data generated by these BSSs is to understand the human mobility in a short-distance trip. This understanding of the population on short-distance trip is lacking, limiting our capacity in management and operation of BSSs. Many existing operations research and management methods for BSS impose assumptions that emphasize statistical simplicity and homogeneity. Therefore, a deep understanding of the statistical patterns embedded in the bike flow data is an urgent and overriding issue to inform decision-makings for a variety of problems including traffic prediction, station placement, bike reallocation, and anomaly detection. In this paper, we aim to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the bike flow data using two large datasets collected in Chicago and Hangzhou over months. Our analysis reveals intrinsic structures of the bike flow data and regularities in both spatial and temporal scales such as a community structure and a taxonomy of the eigen-bike-flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in the use of critical slowing down and critical fluctuations as early warning signals for critical transitions in different complex systems. However, while some studies found them effective, others found the opposite. In this paper, we investigated why this might be so, by testing three commonly used indicators: lag-1 autocorrelation, variance, and low-frequency power spectrum at anticipating critical transitions in the very-high-frequency time series data of the Australian Dollar-Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc-Japanese Yen exchange rates. Besides testing rising trends in these indicators at a strict level of confidence using the Kendall-tau test, we also required statistically significant early warning signals to be concurrent in the three indicators, which must rise to appreciable values. We then found for our data set the optimum parameters for discovering critical transitions, and showed that the set of critical transitions found is generally insensitive to variations in the parameters. Suspecting that negative results in the literature are the results of low data frequencies, we created time series with time intervals over three orders of magnitude from the raw data, and tested them for early warning signals. Early warning signals can be reliably found only if the time interval of the data is shorter than the time scale of critical transitions in our complex system of interest. Finally, we compared the set of time windows with statistically significant early warning signals with the set of time windows followed by large movements, to conclude that the early warning signals indeed provide reliable information on impending critical transitions. This reliability becomes more compelling statistically the more events we test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper we showed that the yeast Pichia pastoris X-33 grown in parboiled rice effluent supplemented with glycerol byproduct from the biodiesel industry improved the quality of the effluent. In this paper we show the validation of this yeast (PPE) as probiotic for broilers. Its effect on feed efficiency and immunomodulation was compared with the same yeast grown in yeast peptone dextrose medium (PPY), with Saccharomyces boulardii (SBY) and with the controls fed unsupplemented feed (CON). One-day-old female chicks were vaccinated against infectious bursal disease (IBD) and the titers of anti-IBD antibodies were measured by ELISA. PPE group had the highest mean titres on days 14 and 28 (p<0,05), and at 28 days, 64% of the animals showed seroconvertion. The PPE group also showed the best weight gains at 42 days of age, that, on days 7, 14 and 21 were 19%, 15%, and 8.7% higher, respectively, than the control group. The best feed conversion, 8.2% higher than the control group, was obtained by PPY at 42 days. Histopathological studies did not detect any undesirable effects in the supplemented animals. We concluded that Pichia pastoris X-33 when grown in effluents of the rice parboiling industry supplemented with glycerol byproduct from the biodiesel has probiotic properties for poultry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selection of seismic attributes is a key process in reservoir prediction because the prediction accuracy relies on the reliability and credibility of the seismic attributes. However, effective selection method for useful seismic attributes is still a challenge. This paper presents a novel selection method of seismic attributes for reservoir prediction based on the gray relational degree (GRD) and support vector machine (SVM). The proposed method has a two-hierarchical structure. In the first hierarchy, the primary selection of seismic attributes is achieved by calculating the GRD between seismic attributes and reservoir parameters, and the GRD between the seismic attributes. The principle of the primary selection is that these seismic attributes with higher GRD to the reservoir parameters will have smaller GRD between themselves as compared to those with lower GRD to the reservoir parameters. Then the SVM is employed in the second hierarchy to perform an interactive error verification using training samples for the purpose of determining the final seismic attributes. A real-world case study was conducted to evaluate the proposed GRD-SVM method. Reliable seismic attributes were selected to predict the coalbed methane (CBM) content in southern Qinshui basin, China. In the analysis, the instantaneous amplitude, instantaneous bandwidth, instantaneous frequency, and minimum negative curvature were selected, and the predicted CBM content was fundamentally consistent with the measured CBM content. This real-world case study demonstrates that the proposed method is able to effectively select seismic attributes, and improve the prediction accuracy. Thus, the proposed GRD-SVM method can be used for the selection of seismic attributes in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the heavy exploitation of holothurians over the last few decades, it is necessary to implement fishing regulations aimed at reversing this situation. Holothurians require specific regulations that take into account their biology and ecology. Their behavior to group and form patches as a strategy for feeding, defense and reproduction, makes them vulnerable to overfishing. The higher the population density, the higher the catchability coefficient, and because they are sedentary organisms, the catchability does not change significantly until the density is very low. Hence, the stock assessment of holothurians can be improved by analyzing their spatial distribution. This paper proposes a stock assessment technique that considers the spatial distribution pattern of the sea cucumber Isostichopus badionotus from Yucatan, Mexico. A bioeconomic spatial model was developed to explain the interactions between fishing effort allocation, quasi-profits and the population in the short term. Because of the high price of the species and the low production costs, artisanal fishers preferred to maximize short-term quasi-profits, rather than the long-term benefits they could gain with low fishing mortality rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land tenure and tenure security are among the most important factors determining the viability and success of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) initiatives. The premise of the present paper is that territorial conflicts lead to forest loss and compromise the successful implementation of REDD+. Within this context, the main objectives of this paper are to (i) document, relying on participatory methods, the extent to which land conflicts drive deforestation and (ii) reflect on the legal context of REDD+ examining if, from an Indigenous perspective, it offers tools to resolve such conflicts. We used the Upper Bayano Watershed in eastern Panama as a case study of complex land tenure dynamics, and their effects on forest conservation in the context of REDD+. Combining a range of participatory methods including participatory mapping and forest carbon stock assessment, we estimated the consequences of land invasions on forest carbon stocks. Our analysis shows that invasions of Indigenous territories amounted to 27.6% of the total deforestation for the period of 2001–2014. The situation is of paramount concern in the Embera territory of Majé where 95.4% of total deforestation was caused by colonist invaders. Using and validating the maps made freely available by the Global Forest Change initiative of the University of Maryland, we then developed a reference level for the watershed and carried out a back of the envelop estimation of likely REDD+ revenue, showing its potential to bring much needed income to Indigenous communities striving to protect their forest estate. Our analysis of current legislation in Panama highlights confusion and important legal voids and emphasizes the strong links between land tenure, carbon ownership, and territorial invasions. The options and shortcoming of implementing REDD+ in Indigenous territories is discussed in the conclusion taking our legal review into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“The Belt and Road” initiative has been expected to facilitate interactions among numerous city centers. This initiative would generate a number of centers, both economic and political, which would facilitate greater interaction. To explore how information flows are merged and the specific opportunities that may be offered, Chinese cities along “the Belt and Road” are selected for a case study. Furthermore, urban networks in cyberspace have been characterized by their infrastructure orientation, which implies that there is a relative dearth of studies focusing on the investigation of urban hierarchies by capturing information flows between Chinese cities along “the Belt and Road”. This paper employs Baidu, the main web search engine in China, to examine urban hierarchies. The results show that urban networks become more balanced, shifting from a polycentric to a homogenized pattern. Furthermore, cities in networks tend to have both a hierarchical system and a spatial concentration primarily in regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region. Urban hierarchy based on web search activity does not follow the existing hierarchical system based on geospatial and economic development in all cases. Moreover, urban networks, under the framework of “the Belt and Road”, show several significant corridors and more opportunities for more cities, particularly western cities. Furthermore, factors that may influence web search activity are explored. The results show that web search activity is significantly influenced by the economic gap, geographical proximity and administrative rank of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Enhancing water provision services is a common target in forest restoration projects worldwide due to growing concerns over freshwater scarcity. However, whether or not forest cover expansion or restoration can improve water provision services is still unclear and highly disputed. Purpose: The goal of this review is to provide a balanced and impartial assessment of the impacts of forest restoration and forest cover expansion on water yields as informed by the scientific literature. Potential sources of bias on the results of papers published are also examined. Data sources: English, Spanish and Portuguese peer-review articles in Agricola, CAB Abstracts, ISI Web of Science, JSTOR, Google Scholar, and SciELO. Databases were searched through 2015. Search terms: Intervention terms included forest restoration, regeneration/regrowth, forest second-growth, forestation/afforestation, and forestry. Target terms included water yield/quantity, streamflow, discharge, channel runoff, and annual flow. Study selection and eligibility criteria: Articles were pre-selected based on key words in the title, abstract or text. Eligible articles addressed relevant interventions and targets and included quantitative information. Results: Most studies reported decreases in water yields following the intervention, while other hydrological benefits have been observed. However, relatively few studies focused specifically on forest restoration, especially with native species, and/or on projects done at large spatial or temporal scales. Information is especially limited for the humid tropics and subtropics. Conclusions and implications of key findings: While most studies reported a decrease in water yields, meta-analyses from a sub-set of studies suggest the potential influence of temporal and/or spatial scales on the outcomes of forest cover expansion or restoration projects. Given the many other benefits of forest restoration, improving our understanding of when and why forest restoration can lead to recovery of water yields is crucial to help improve positive outcomes and prevent unintended consequences. Our study identifies the critical types of studies and associated measurements needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selecting appropriate environmental variables is a key step in ecology. Terrain attributes (e.g. slope, rugosity) are routinely used as abiotic surrogates of species distribution and to produce habitat maps that can be used in decision-making for conservation or management. Selecting appropriate terrain attributes for ecological studies may be a challenging process that can lead users to select a subjective, potentially sub-optimal combination of attributes for their applications. The objective of this paper is to assess the impacts of subjectively selecting terrain attributes for ecological applications by comparing the performance of different combinations of terrain attributes in the production of habitat maps and species distribution models. Seven different selections of terrain attributes, alone or in combination with other environmental variables, were used to map benthic habitats of German Bank (off Nova Scotia, Canada). 29 maps of potential habitats based on unsupervised classifications of biophysical characteristics of German Bank were produced, and 29 species distribution models of sea scallops were generated using MaxEnt. The performances of the 58 maps were quantified and compared to evaluate the effectiveness of the various combinations of environmental variables. One of the combinations of terrain attributes–recommended in a related study and that includes a measure of relative position, slope, two measures of orientation, topographic mean and a measure of rugosity–yielded better results than the other selections for both methodologies, confirming that they together best describe terrain properties. Important differences in performance (up to 47% in accuracy measurement) and spatial outputs (up to 58% in spatial distribution of habitats) highlighted the importance of carefully selecting variables for ecological applications. This paper demonstrates that making a subjective choice of variables may reduce map accuracy and produce maps that do not adequately represent habitats and species distributions, thus having important implications when these maps are used for decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at conducting the first science mapping analysis of the Mediterranean forest research in order to elucidate its research structure and evolution. We applied a science mapping approach based on co-term and citation analyses to a set of scientific publications retrieved from the Elsevier’s Scopus database over the period 1980–2014. The Scopus search retrieved 2,698 research papers and reviews published by 159 peer-reviewed journals. The total number of publications was around 1% (N = 17) during the period 1980–1989 and they reached 3% (N = 69) in the time slice 1990–1994. Since 1995, the number of publications increased exponentially, thus reaching 55% (N = 1,476) during the period 2010–2014. Within the thirty-four years considered, the retrieved publications were published by 88 countries. Among them, Spain was the most productive country, publishing 44% (N = 1,178) of total publications followed by Italy (18%, N = 482) and France (12%, N = 336). These countries also host the ten most productive scientific institutions in terms of number of publications in Mediterranean forest subjects. Forest Ecology and Management and Annals of Forest Science were the most active journals in publishing research in Mediterranean forest. During the period 1980–1994, the research topics were poorly characterized, but they become better defined during the time slice 1995–1999. Since 2000s, the clusters become well defined by research topics. Current status of Mediterranean forest research (20092014) was represented by four clusters, in which different research topics such as biodiversity and conservation, land-use and degradation, climate change effects on ecophysiological responses and soil were identified. Basic research in Mediterranean forest ecosystems is mainly conducted by ecophysiological research. Applied research was mainly represented by land-use and degradation, biodiversity and conservation and fire research topics. The citation analyses revealed highly cited terms in the Mediterranean forest research as they were represented by fire, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, climate change and global warming. Finally, our analysis also revealed the multidisciplinary role of climate change research. This study provides a first holistic view of the Mediterranean forest research that could be useful for researchers and policy makers as they may evaluate and analyze its historical evolution, as well as its structure and scientific production. We concluded that Mediterranean forest research represents an active scientific field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constrained ordination methods aims at finding an environmental gradient along which the species abundances are maximally separated. The species response functions, which describe the expected abundance as a function of the environmental score, are according to the ecological fundamental niche theory only meaningful if they are bell-shaped. Many classical model-based ordination methods, however, use quadratic regression models without imposing the bell-shape and thus allowing for meaningless U-shaped response functions. The analysis output (e.g. a biplot) may therefore be potentially misleading and the conclusions are prone to errors. In this paper we present a log-likelihood ratio criterion with a penalisation term to enforce more bell-shaped response shapes. We report the results of a simulation study and apply our method to metagenomics data from microbial ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are now many methods available to assess the relative citation performance of peer-reviewed journals. Regardless of their individual faults and advantages, citation-based metrics are used by researchers to maximize the citation potential of their articles, and by employers to rank academic track records. The absolute value of any particular index is arguably meaningless unless compared to other journals, and different metrics result in divergent rankings. To provide a simple yet more objective way to rank journals within and among disciplines, we developed a κ-resampled composite journal rank incorporating five popular citation indices: Impact Factor, Immediacy Index, Source-Normalized Impact Per Paper, SCImago Journal Rank and Google 5-year h-index; this approach provides an index of relative rank uncertainty. We applied the approach to six sample sets of scientific journals from Ecology (n = 100 journals), Medicine (n = 100), Multidisciplinary (n = 50); Ecology + Multidisciplinary (n = 25), Obstetrics & Gynaecology (n = 25) and Marine Biology & Fisheries (n = 25). We then cross-compared the κ-resampled ranking for the Ecology + Multidisciplinary journal set to the results of a survey of 188 publishing ecologists who were asked to rank the same journals, and found a 0.68–0.84 Spearman’s ρ correlation between the two rankings datasets. Our composite index approach therefore approximates relative journal reputation, at least for that discipline. Agglomerative and divisive clustering and multi-dimensional scaling techniques applied to the Ecology + Multidisciplinary journal set identified specific clusters of similarly ranked journals, with only Nature & Science separating out from the others. When comparing a selection of journals within or among disciplines, we recommend collecting multiple citation-based metrics for a sample of relevant and realistic journals to calculate the composite rankings and their relative uncertainty windows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quandong or native peach (Santalum acuminatum R.Br.) has been recognised as an important and tasty food resource among Aboriginal Australians in arid and semi-arid areas of southern Australia. It is valued for its fruit that is consumed raw or dried, and for its kernel, which is eaten raw or ground into paste for medicinal and skin care purposes. This paper reports on a study of ground stone implements within the Murray Darling Basin that has identified quandong stones as a distinct type of implement made specifically for the efficient cracking of quandong nuts. Data are presented on 1,327 ground stone implements from collections in 12 different locations in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), an area almost completely devoid of stone sources. Given the paucity of stone, multi-purpose use of implements is widely documented. Although it was common to find pits present in mortars and other ground stone tools demonstrating multiple functions, including use as anvils, a class of single purpose stones with multiple pits and distinctive form was identified. Most of these were found in areas known for groves of quandong and four were analysed for use-wear and residues along with two other ground stone items from the MDB. The results support their identification as specialised anvil stones for cracking quandong nuts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulating ecosystem services provided by urban forests are of great importance for the quality of life among city dwellers. To reach a maximum contribution to well-being in cities, the urban regulating ecosystem services (URES) must match with the demands in terms of space and time. If we understand the matches or mismatches between the current urban dwellers’ desired quality conditions (demand) and the supply of URES by urban forests (UF) in the cities, this will facilitate integrating the concepts of ecosystem services in urban planning and management, but such an assessment has suffered from major knowledge limitations. Since it is complex and problematic to identify the direct demands for URES and the spatiotemporal patterns therein, improving the demand indicators can help to determine the actual requirements. In this paper, a methodological approach based on indicators is presented and demonstrated for two important URES: air quality improvement and global climate change mitigation provided by urban trees and shrubs. Four air quality standards and greenhouse gas reduction targets were used and compared to supplies of the URES in Tabriz, Iran. Our results show that the mean contribution of the URES supply to air quality standards and greenhouse gas reduction targets is modest. Hence, in Tabriz, there is a strong mismatch between demand and supply. Mismatches at the city scale will have to be reduced by both a reduction in pollutant emissions and an increased provisioning of URES supply through urban greenery. The presented assessment approach and the results for Tabriz make it explicit how different the demands and supplies of the two studied URES are, and we expect similar mismatches in many other cities. Therefore, our approach, relatively simple but still realistic and easy-to-apply, can raise awareness about, and the utility of, the ecosystem services concepts for urban planning and policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine environments are visual domains restricted regarding light characteristics. Overall, blue monochromatic spectrum prevails in offshore areas especially below 15m depth, since long wavelengths are quickly attenuated. Light intensity is even more constrained in coastal waters, particularly those of tropical estuaries and bays, because further scattering through dissolved and suspended materials. Biofluorescence, which is the ability of organisms to absorb light and reflect it in a different wavelength, has been reported for many marine fish. In this paper, biofluorescence was recorded for the first time for the longsnout seahorse Hippocampus reidi, under natural conditions at Ilha Grande bay, Brazil, and both adult, juvenile and fry individuals kept in captivity. Although displaying the same colour emissions, seahorses differed in relation to body lighting, colour patterns, and age wherein fluorescence occurs. Newborn seahorses exhibit green biofluorescence only in the eyes and stomach. Further experiments are necessary to address whether H. reidi can change the patterns of biofluorescence emission for sensorial and social purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Excess emissions are pollutant releases that occur during periods of startups, shutdowns or malfunctions and are considered violations of the U.S. Clean Air Act. They are an important, but understudied and under-regulated, category of pollution releases given their frequency and magnitude. In this paper, we examine the demographic correlates of excess emissions, using data from industrial sources in Texas. Methods: We conduct two complementary sets of analyses: one at the census tract level and one at the facility level. At the census tract level, we use a multinomial logit model to examine the relationships between racial, ethnic, and income characteristics and the incidence of excess emissions. At the facility level, we first estimate a logit model to examine whether these characteristics are associated with facilities that emit excess emissions, and then, conditional on the presence of excess emissions, we use ordinary least square regression to estimate their correlation with the magnitude of releases. Results: Across our analyses, we find that the percentage of Black population and median household income are positively associated with excess emissions; percentage of college graduate, population density, median housing value, and percentage of owner-occupied housing unit are negatively associated with excess emissions. We, however, have not found a clear and significant relationship between the percentage of Hispanic population and excess emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]