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Despite its long-standing assumption of the spread of early pottery innovated by the Late-Glacial hunter-gatherers in Japan, cultural diffusion as an explanatory model has not explicitly tested. This study addresses the question of the extent to which cultural diffusion played a role in proliferating the innovated early pottery technology across the Japanese Archipelago by employing the distance decay model of cultural diffusion. Based on the assembled dataset of the Late-Glacial assemblages with early pottery radiocarbon dates, distances between the presumed core where the earliest dates were obtained (i.e., Odaiyamamoto I) and the adopted sites do not exhibit the time-progressive pattern. In contrast, frequencies of potsherds relative to lithic artifacts increases as time progressed, implying that early pottery technology was gradually accumulated nearly by the end of the Younger Dryas, ca, 11,000 cal. BP. This study demonstrates that cultural diffusion does not fully explain the emergence and spread of early pottery in Japan, while the Late-Glacial travel and exchange networks enabled hunter-gatherers to transmit and accumulate knowledge of pottery use.

The history of development of Kolkata as a megacity in India dates back to 300 years. The scenario changed when the administrative headquarter of the British East India Company was established in erstwhile Calcutta, located at the bank of the River Hugli in the lower Gangetic plain. Since its inception, Kolkata has undergone rapid formal and functional change. Both national and international migration has led to the demographic explosion, urban industrial development and an increase in economic opportunities which caused environmental degradation. Until 1793, the urban dynamics of Kolkata followed a linear pattern along the left bank of the Hugli River. A similar trend continued along the right bank from 1793 to 1947 and extended up to its periphery post-independence. In this paper, an attempt was made to explore the influence of river ghats on the urban environment along the selected stretch of the River Hugli. Human activities like garbage disposal (0.089), sewage disposal (0.088) and idol immersion (0.084) have a negative impact on the river water. Secondly, this paper attempts to study the vertical expansion of Kolkata. It has been observed that the average height of buildings in the CBD area is 84.6 meters while along the peri-urban area it is only 10.61 meters proving the distance decay effect (R2 = 0.405 and R2 = 0.314). Besides, the mean values of DQ (5.179mg/l), BQD (8.5mg/l) and CQD (34.5mg/l) in the river water reflect the degrading water quality for the aquatic environment. Geospatial assessment techniques were used to understand the research problems and combat the environmental challenges. Complex functional development and decaying urban quality of life along the Hugli River has led to critical environmental transformation.

A key tenant of risk reduction models in archaeology the world over is that changes in resource availability drove mobility increases and created a need for an extension of stone tool use life. This manuscript directly addresses the question, is retouch intensity of tools related to distance from freshwater, by using extant localities of major Gorges, Rivers and water holes in the southern Kimberley region of northern Australia. Previous research has argued that retouched stone points during the mid to late-Holocene were part of a risk minimisation strategy, within broader technological organisation models. Modelling the distance from primary water sources, in arid to semi-arid regions of the southern Kimberley, reduction intensity of points is found to increase with distance from water sources consistently. This research provides an appropriate test of existing risk minimisation models and highlights global significance for similar studies where retouch tool reduction and forager mobility are linked to environmental change.

Purpose Spatial behavior of patients in utilizing health care reflects their travel burden or mobility, accessibility for medical service, and subsequently outcomes from treatment. This paper derives the best-fitting distance decay function to capture the spatial behaviors of cancer patients in the Northeast region of the U.S., and examines and explains the spatial variability of such behaviors across sub-regions. Principal results (1) 46.8%, 85.5%, and 99.6% of cancer care received was within a driving time of 30, 60, and 180 min, respectively. (2) The exponential distance decay function is the best in capturing the travel behavior of cancer patients in the region and across most sub-regions. (3) The friction coefficient in the distance decay function is negatively correlated with the mean travel time. (4) The best-fitting function forms are associated with network structures. (5) The variation of the friction coefficient across sub-regions is related to factors such as urbanicity, economic development level, and market competition intensity. Major conclusions The distance decay function offers an analytic metric to capture a full spectrum of travel behavior, and thus a more comprehensive measure than average travel time. Examining the geographic variation of travel behavior needs a reliable analysis unit such as organically defined “cancer service areas,” which capture relevant health care market structure and thus are more meaningful than commonly-used geopolitical or census area units.

Aim Ecological communities that exist closer together in space are generally more compositionally similar than those far apart, as defined by the distance?decay of similarity relationship. However, recent research has revealed substantial variability in the distance?decay relationships of microbial communities between studies of different taxonomic groups, ecosystems and spatial scales and between those using different molecular methodologies (e.g., high-throughput sequencing versus molecular fingerprinting). Here, we test how these factors influence the strength of microbial distance?decay relationships, in order to draw generalizations about how microbial ?-diversity scales with space. Location Global. Time period Studies published between 2005 and 2019 (inclusive). Major taxa studied Bacteria, Archaea and microbial Eukarya. Methods We conducted a meta-analysis of microbial distance?decay relationships, using the Mantel correlation coefficient as a measure of the strength of distance?decay relationships. Our final dataset consisted of 452 data points, varying in environmental/ecological context or methodological approaches, and we used linear models to test the effects of each variable. Results Both ecological and methodological factors had significant impacts on the strength of microbial distance?decay relationships. Specifically, the strength of these relationships varied between environments and habitats, with soils showing significantly weaker distance?decay relationships than other habitats, whereas increasing spatial extents had no effect. Methodological factors, such as sequencing depth, were positively related to the strength of distance?decay relationships, and choice of dissimilarity metric was also important, with phylogenetic metrics generally giving weaker distance?decay relationships than binary or abundance-based indices. Main conclusions We conclude that widely studied microbial biogeographical patterns, such as the distance?decay relationship, vary by ecological context but are primarily distorted by methodological choices. Consequently, we suggest that by linking methodological approaches appropriately to the ecological context of a study, we can progress towards generalizable biogeographical relationships in microbial ecology.

Place attachment has been a research focus in the fields of park and recreation management. Place attachment plays an important role in promoting sustainable development of parks and mountain tourism destination, however, there are limited studies that identified the spatial patterns of place attachment, especially in the context of mountain tourism destinations in China. Also, the geospatial spectrum of visitors is usually broad, examining the multivariate relationships among spatial proximity, perceived authenticity, and place attachment are essential for mountain tourism destinations to promote destination image and strengthen emotional bonding with targeted visitor groups. In this study, we selected an iconic and highly visited park, Jiuzhai Valley National Park in China, as our study site and conducted an on-site visitor survey to collect 557 samples. Study uses factor analysis and the structure equation model to analyze the relationship among spatial proximity, perceived authenticity, and place attachment. Results validate the two-dimension structure of place attachment and perceived authenticity. Study findings suggest that spatial proximity has significant impacts on existential authenticity and place identity, but has no significant impacts on place dependence. Perceived authenticity has a positive impact on place attachment. Study results advance the theories of place attachment and provide effective strategies to enhance emotional attachment between visitors and mountain tourism destinations.

This study examined the residential perceptions of industrial activities in Ilupeju, Lagos, Nigeria. The relevance of distance decay theory, which postulates that the magnitude of effects of the outputs from an industrial establishment would decrease with increasing distance from the point of origin, was tested in the study. Global Positioning System was used to capture the coordinates of the identified firms in Ilupeju. Additionally, two different sets of structured questionnaire were designed; the first set, which was distributed among the industrialists, sought information on the types of waste generated among others while the second set was randomly distributed among the residents and was used to elicit information on the types of pollution emanating from the industries, socioeconomic benefits, among others. The result shows that there is a significant variation in the perceived effects as people living within 0.5 km to the industrial sites claimed to suffer more pollution than those living 1.5 km away from the industrial sites, which is consistent with the distance decay theory. On the other hand, the distance decay theory cannot explain socioeconomic impacts such as increase in living costs, among others as they are felt around the study area irrespective of distance away from the industrial sites.

In the context of cross-border integration, this article analyses the tourism market in counties and municipalities in the Lithuanian-Polish cross-border region. The aim of the research has been to perform analysis of spatial interaction of tourist flows in this region and to evaluate the integration progress in that field. The methods chosen for this purpose comprised a comparative analysis of statistical data, and construction and analyses of two types of gravity models, one for estimation of the potential overnight tourist flows, and the other for the determination of market boundaries of the main centres of tourist attraction in the investigated region. The analysis revealed the asymmetry in tourism development in border regions of those two countries, but the determination of tourism market boundaries testified the ongoing process of integration of the tourism market in this cross-border region. However, using gravitational distance decay function for potential tourists flows modelling from the bigger cities to the resorts appeared to be inappropriate in this research due to the contradiction to the statistical data about the number of overnight tourists and the disability to separate the overnight tourists and one-day visitors in the model.

Cultural heritage is a potentially important determinant of international tourism flows. Apart from being an enrichment for both individuals and communities and an opportunity for different cultures to meet, tourism also represents a significant industry for European economies. We empirically investigate the impact of the endowment of tangible cultural heritage on tourism attractiveness of European regions. We measure material forms of cultural heritage both as regional density of locally defined monuments, cultural landscapes and museums, and as number of cultural sites listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites international programme. Using a Bayesian multilevel gravity model, we find that UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites are associated with an increase of 6,000 (one site) to 60,000 (eight sites) international tourists from each European country to an average European region. On the other hand, regionally or nationally defined tangible forms of heritage play a more limited role as pull-factors for international tourism. Moreover, we show that the presence of UNESCO sites reduces the distance decay effect. International tourists are willing to travel longer distance if a destination is endowed with UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites.

With the establishment and expansion of urban areas, many plants are lost, while some are gained. Understanding plant species richness and composition in cities, including planted elements along streetscapes, is a priority for urban vegetation management and biodiversity conservation. In this study, we assessed the compositional dissimilarity of street trees and shrubs (namely woody vegetation) in the Neotropical city of Xalapa (Mexico) through a citywide sampling scheme. We also evaluated potential relationships between woody vegetation compositional dissimilarity among survey sites considering the distance between them (which is the inverse equivalent of distance decay in studies focused on similarity). For this, we calculated pairwise compositional values using the partitioned Sorensen dissimilarity index (βsor), which allows accounting for the turnover (βsim) and nestedness (βsne) components of the observed dissimilarities. To assess potential distance increases in dissimilarity, we used generalized linear models. Results from our citywide survey show that βsor values were high, indicating that planted woody species composition on streetscapes was heterogeneous and mainly driven by species turnover. Additionally, woody vegetation composition showed a weak increase in dissimilarity with increasing distances between survey sites. Altogether, our findings show that the dissimilarity of woody vegetation along the streetscapes of Xalapa does not follow any particular spatial pattern, which is not in agreement with previous evidence reported in the literature. These findings reflect the impact and role that citizens and local authorities play on the configuration of the street tree and shrub species composition by species selection, planting, and care.

International audience; Aim To analyse temporal metacommunity dynamics in river networks in relation to hydrological conditions and dispersal. Location Fifteen river reaches from the Llobregat, Besos and Foix catchments in the North-Eastern Iberian Peninsula. Taxon Aquatic macroinvertebrates belonging to 99 different families. Methods We sampled aquatic macroinvertebrate communities during spring in 20 consecutive years. We built two environmental distances (one related with water chemistry and another one with river flow regime) and two spatial distances (network distance and topographic distance). Then we used Mantel tests (accounting for spatial autocorrelation) to relate macroinvertebrate dissimilarity with environmental and spatial distances. Additionally, we determined the dry and wet years using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and we classified macroinvertebrate families based on their ability to fly and to drift. Finally, we ran a linear regression model including the correlation value (r) of each Mantel test as response variable and distance type (environmental or spatial), SPI, dispersal mode, their pairwise interactions and a three-way interaction as predictor variables. Results Metacommunity organization varied over time and it was significantly affected by precipitation, which can be related to river network connectivity. The environmental filters, mainly the flow regime, were generally more important than the spatial filters in explaining community dissimilarity over the study period. However, this depended on the dispersal abilities of the organisms. Network fragmentation due to flow intermittence during the dry years significantly reduced the dispersal capacity of strong aerial dispersers, leading to spatially structured metacommunities. For strong drift dispersers, community dissimilarity patterns were generally best explained by environmental filters regardless of SPI. Main conclusions A significant temporal variation in metacommunity organization can be expected in highly dynamic systems (e.g. Mediterranean rivers) and it might depend on the dispersal modes and abilities of the organisms, since they determine the response to changes in environmental and landscape filters.

Background Women in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) remain at high risk of developing cervical cancer and have limited access to screening programs. The limits include geographical barriers related to road network characteristics and travel behaviors but these have neither been well studied in LMIC nor have methods to overcome them been incorporated into cervical cancer screening delivery programs. Methods To identify and evaluate spatial barriers to cervical cancer prevention services in Ondo State, Nigeria, we applied a Multi-Mode Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area model to create a spatial access index for cervical cancer screening services in Ondo City and the surrounding region. The model used inputs that included the distance between service locations and population centers, local population density, quantity of healthcare infrastructures, modes of transportation, and the travel time budgets of clients. Two different travel modes, taxi and mini bus, represented common modes of transit. Geocoded client residential locations were compared to spatial access results to identify patterns of spatial access and estimate where gaps in access existed. Results Ondo City was estimated to have the highest access in the region, while the largest city, Akure, was estimated to be in only the middle tier of access. While 73.5% of clients of the hospital in Ondo City resided in the two highest access zones, 21.5% of clients were from locations estimated to be in the lowest access catchment, and a further 2.25% resided outside these limits. Some areas that were relatively close to cervical cancer screening centers had lower access values due to poor road network coverage and fewer options for public transportation. Conclusions Variations in spatial access were revealed based on client residential patterns, travel time differences, distance decay assumptions, and travel mode choices. Assessing access to cervical cancer screening better identifies potentially underserved locations in rural Nigeria that can inform plans for cervical cancer screening including new or improved infrastructure, effective resource allocation, introduction of service options for areas with lower access, and design of public transportation networks.

Distance decay defined as demand or volume decreases exponentially with distance increases. It is a gravity model of human geography that used to understand human behaviours, movements, and tourism flows, particularly in tourism planning and management. Thus, this paper attempts to outline a systematic literature review to provide a comprehensive understanding with different distance decay thematic studied in tourism research from the year 2000 - 2020. The review identified the research focuses with the research scopes studied and contribute to conceptual and theoretical basic understanding. Keywords: distance decay; sustainable tourism development; science mapping. eISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bsby e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5i14.2275

To evaluate to what extent effects of environmental heterogeneity and geographic distance determine beta-diversity of woody communities within and among vegetation types at a basin spatial scale. The importance of two components of beta-diversity (nestedness and replacement) were also assessed. Location: Cuitzeo basin, central Mexico. The Cuitzeo basin (ca. 4000 km2) encompasses different vegetation types, among which tropical shrubland, oak forest, and oak–coniferous forest are the most important. We sampled 49 sites (0.1 ha each) across these three vegetation types. All shrubs and trees with diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥ 2.5 cm were recorded and taxonomically identified. Evidence of distance decay model (DDM) was assessed through exponential regressions of Bray–Curtis (measured with basal area) and Sorensen (measured with presence–absence) similarities as function of geographic and environmental distances among sites. Mantel analyses were performed in order to evaluate the influence of distances on similarity values. Exponential decay models of nestedness and replacement as function of distances were evaluated. Evidence supporting DDM was found, but the statistical strength depended on the vegetation type, the variable used to quantify distance, and the way similarity (BC) was measured. Overall, the effect of environmental distance variables was relatively stronger than geographic distance, suggesting that niche-related processes might be more important across the Cuitzeo basin. There is evidence that environmental heterogeneity has a greater importance on beta-diversity of woody communities within the studied basin than geographic distance. We discuss that niche scale processes are causing this result.

Aim: The two additive components of β-diversity, namely turnover and nestedness, reflect the two basic mechanisms underlying the overall change in species identities across the landscape, the replacement of species or their loss, respectively. Analogously, functional turnover and nestedness express the replacement or loss of functional traits associated with variations in community composition. However, the extent to which patterns of compositional and functional nestedness and turnover may overlap, or diverge, is still uncertain in marine environments. Here, patterns of turnover and nestedness were quantified in marine benthic assemblages in order to assess their relative contribution to spatial patterns of compositional and functional β-diversity. Location: Mediterranean Sea, NE Ionian Sea, Ionian Archipelago. Methods: In this study, we investigated patterns of dissimilarity in species and functional trait composition in subtidal macrobenthic assemblages from Mediterranean islands in order to quantify compositional and functional β-diversity among islands, determine the relative contributions of turnover and nestedness, and compare β-diversity patterns occurring in shallow and deeper reefs. Results: We found a complex relationship between functional and compositional β-diversity at varying depth. At 5 m, species and functional trait dissimilarity largely overlapped, with turnover being the dominant component in both cases. At 15 m, compositional β-diversity was mostly due to turnover, with a negligible contribution of nestedness, whereas the opposite occurred for functional β-diversity. Partitioning β-diversity components revealed this discrepancy and the presence of functional hotspots, which would remain unnoticed analysing the overall compositional and functional β-diversity. Main conclusions: Our findings may have profound implications for the optimization of conservation planning, stressing the need for assessing habitat-dependent idiosyncrasies in components of functional and compositional β-diversity for a more comprehensive picture of possible protection scenarios that, besides structure, may also allow preserving the functioning of marine communities.

In this paper, we analyze several local referendums on land development and land‐use regulation in the City of Erlangen (Germany) between 2011 and 2018. To identify the positive influence of the travel distance on approval for land development, we control for distance to the city center and density, employ a two‐way fixed‐effect model, and use spatial instruments. We also analyze the heterogeneity of city dwellers' preferences for the development of residential and commercial areas. In particular, we examine the differences between homeowners and tenants in this regard.

Funding: European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 615159 (ERC Consolidator Grant DEPRIVEDHOODS, Socio-spatial inequality, deprived neighbourhoods, and neighbourhood effects) and from the Marie Curie programme under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / Career Integration Grant n. PCIG10-GA-2011-303728 (CIG Grant NBHCHOICE, Neighbourhood choice, neighbourhood sorting, and neighbourhood effects). There is no theoretical reason to assume that neighborhood effects operate at a constant single spatial scale across multiple urban settings or over different periods of time. Despite this, many studies use large, single-scale, predefined spatial units as proxies for neighborhoods. Recently, the use of bespoke neighborhoods has challenged the predominant approach to neighborhood as a single static unit. This article argues that we need to move away from neighborhood effects and study multiscale context effects. The article systematically examines how estimates of spatial contextual effects vary when altering the spatial scale of context, how this translates across urban space, and what the consequences are when using an inappropriate scale, in the absence of theory. Using individual-level geocoded data from The Netherlands, we created 101 bespoke areas around each individual. We ran 101 models of personal income to examine the effect of living in a low-income spatial context, focusing on four distinct regions. We found that contextual effects vary over both scales and urban settings, with the largest effects not necessarily present at the smallest spatial scale. Ultimately, the magnitude of contextual effects is determined by various spatial processes, along with the variability in urban structure. Therefore, using an inappropriate spatial scale can considerably bias (upward or downward) spatial context effects. Publisher PDF

In 2021, the Biden administration signed an executive order to protect 30% of American lands by 2030. Accomplishing this ambitious goal in the U.S. requires understanding the relative contribution of public and private lands toward supporting biodiversity. New approaches are needed because existing approaches focus on quantity of habitat without incorporating quality. To fill this need, we developed a 30 m resolution national habitat condition index (HCI) that integrates quality and quantity measures of habitat. We hypothesized that including an evaluation of the quality of habitat at landscape scales, both in conservation-focused preserves and working lands would provide a better assessment of the value of geographies for conservation. We divided the conterminous U.S. by major land cover type and into natural and cultivated lands and then spatially mapped multiple anthropogenic stressors, proximity to aquatic habitat, and vegetation departure from expected natural disturbance regimes. Each map layer was then scored for site impact and distance decay and combined into a final national index. Field observations providing scored relative ecological conditions were used for HCI calibration and validation at both CONUS and regional scales. Finally, we evaluate lands by management (conservation versus working lands) and ownership (public versus private) testing the value of these lands for conservation. While we found regional differences across CONUS, functional habitat was largely independent of protection status: working lands provide clear habitat and other values. These results are relevant for guiding strategies to achieve the U.S. 30 by 30 goals. Where similar data exist in other countries, analogous modeling could be used to meet their national conservation commitments.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is gaining a growing popularity among scientists but its applicability to biodiversity research and management remains limited in river systems by the lack of knowledge about the spatial extent of the downstream transport of eDNA.Here, we assessed the ability of eDNA inventories to retrieve spatial patterns of fish assemblages along two large and species rich Neotropical rivers. We first examined overall community variation with distance through the distance decay of similarity and compared this pattern to capture-based samples. We then considered previous knowledge on individual species distributions, and compared it to the eDNA inventories for a set of 53 species.eDNA collected from 28 sites in the Maroni and 25 sites in the Oyapock rivers permitted to retrieve a decline of species similarity with distance between sites. The distance decay of similarity derived from eDNA was similar, and even more pronounced, than that obtained with capture-based methods (gil-nets). In addition, the species upstream-downstream distribution range derived from eDNA matched to the known distribution of most species.Our results demonstrate that environmental DNA does not represent an integrative measure of biodiversity across the whole upstream river basin but provide a relevant picture of local fish assemblages. Importantly, the spatial signal gathered from eDNA was therefore comparable to that gathered with local capture based methods, which describes fish fauna over a few hundred metres.

Geospatial data often build the basis for planning decisions in smart cities. In the decision-making process, geospatial relationships have not yet been fully considered and represented. The aim of our research is to investigate these geospatial relationships. This paper presents a four-step process to identify geospatial key factors in smart city use cases. We further develop and evaluate an existing metric to measure the impact of geospatial factors in urban area. For this, we use three variables to characterise distance decay, opening hours and an attractiveness weight for customers depends on the use case. The use case of this study is off-street parking over a period of four years in Mainz, Germany. The results show temporal relationships between parking and geospatial factors. Consequently, our research indicates the impact of different factors on car parks. This knowledge enriches decisions for sustainable planning in cities.

Shaped by human movement, place connectivity is quantified by the strength of spatial interactions among locations. For decades, spatial scientists have researched place connectivity, applications, and metrics. The growing popularity of social media provides a new data stream where spatial social interaction measures are largely devoid of privacy issues, easily assessable, and harmonized. In this study, we introduced a global multi-scale place connectivity index (PCI) based on spatial interactions among places revealed by geotagged tweets as a spatiotemporal-continuous and easy-to-implement measurement. The multi-scale PCI, demonstrated at the US county level, exhibits a strong positive association with SafeGraph population movement records (10% penetration in the US population) and Facebook’s social connectedness index (SCI), a popular connectivity index based on social networks. We found that PCI has a strong boundary effect and that it generally follows the distance decay, although this force is weaker in more urbanized counties with a denser population. Our investigation further suggests that PCI has great potential in addressing real-world problems that require place connectivity knowledge, exemplified with two applications: (1) modeling the spatial spread of COVID-19 during the early stage of the pandemic and (2) modeling hurricane evacuation destination choice. The methodological and contextual knowledge of PCI, together with the open-sourced PCI datasets at various geographic levels, are expected to support research fields requiring knowledge in human spatial interactions.

Accessibility is a factor affecting national park visitation. However, the effect of accessibility on national park visitation is not fully understood. This paper examines the relationship between U.S. national park visitation and accessibility. First, the global and local accessibility indexes of each park unit are computed based on an accessibility model that takes into account the surrounding population and its proximity to the park unit. Integrated in the model is a distance decay coefficient that is derived from U.S. national park visitor surveys and therefore pertinent to the case of study. Then correlation analysis is performed between park visitation and accessibility based on park types, regions, and visitation types. Results show that total visitation is positively related to accessibility in National Memorials, Military Parks and Battlefield Parks/Sites but negatively related to accessibility in national parks and national monuments. However, recreational overnight stay visits are commonly negatively correlated to accessibility for almost all park types. Moreover, local accessibility index displays enhanced correlation coefficients with improved significance levels in many categories of analysis. Results suggest that historical/cultural national parks which often show positive correlations tend to attract more local visitors, but nature-based parks which mainly show negative correlations tend to attract more distant visitors.

Different metacommunity perspectives have been developed to describe the relationship between environmental and spatial factors and their relative roles for local communities. However, only little is known about temporal variation in metacommunities and their underlying drivers. We examined temporal variation in the relative roles of environmental and spatial factors for diatom community composition among brackish-watered rock pools on the Baltic Sea coast over a 3-month period. We used a combination of direct ordination, variation partition, and Mantel tests to investigate the metacommunity patterns. The studied communities housed a mixture of freshwater, brackish, and marine species, with a decreasing share of salinity tolerant species along both temporal and spatial gradients. The community composition was explained by both environmental and spatial variables (especially conductivity and distance from the sea) in each month; the joint effect of these factors was consistently larger than the pure effects of either variable group. Community similarity was related to both environmental and spatial distance between the pools even when the other variable group was controlled for. The relative influence of environmental factors increased with time, accounting for the largest share of the variation in species composition and distance decay of similarity in July. Metacommunity organization in the studied rock pools was probably largely explained by a combination of species sorting and mass effect given the small spatial study scale. The found strong distance decay of community similarity indicates spatially highly heterogeneous diatom communities mainly driven by temporally varying conductivity gradient at the marine-freshwater transition zone.

The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of dog park use and the role that perceived dog park benefits, park proximity, and both individual and neighborhood characteristics play in predic...

The green spaces and urban parks play a critical role to improve the quality of life of citizens. In order to meet the principles of the justice-based city and spatial justice in the distribution of public services, it is necessary to evaluate the accessibility to parks in different locations and pay more attention to the places with a low level of accessibility. This study evaluates the spatial justice or inequalities in accessibility to urban parks in District # 11 of Tehran, Iran using a set of spatial indices and GIS tools. Indices used in this study are Covering, Minimum distance, Average distance, Proximity, Two-step floating catchment area and Gravity-based two-step floating catchment area. The results indicate that the level of accessibility to mini and neighborhood parks are almost similar and below the average level. The slight differences in the results are related to the differences in the assumptions and logics of methods. Moreover, the results show that the Coverage, 2SFCA and GB2SFCA (with inappropriate distance decay coefficient) methods face limitations when the accessibility for the community parks are calculated. For example, the Coverage method does not take into account the area of the park for measuring the accessibility level, in turn, this leads to inaccurate results. Overall, the findings show better accessibility to community parks than mini and neighborhood parks. This implies that the municipalities need to increase the number of local mini and neighborhood parks across the city.

Metacommunity theory is a new approach for explaining how local and regional processes contribute to community organisation and integrative studies are needed to fully characterise the processes underlying its structure and function. We analysed, through variation partitioning and distance decay relationships, how metacommunities of fish in pools of intermittent rivers are structured by environmental, species interaction and spatial factors. The results indicate that both species sorting and dispersal limitation (spatial factors) were important in shaping fish metacommunities. Species sorting was the most influential driver within fish metacommunities, but predation was much less relevant and did not show any pure effect in metacommunity structure. However, environmental factors were determinant among metacommunity patches.

The tithe files contain a large amount of agricultural production data, but have not been much used for econometric analysis. The data is the result of averaging and estimating, thus some doubt has been cast on its accuracy. This article shows that for eight counties in the southwest of England, some data from the tithe files is reasonably reliable and was recorded in a consistent manner. The article demonstrates how tithe files and other data can be geocoded with spatial information so that an analysis using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) may be performed. Three tests are carried out, showing that pastoral rents followed a ‘distance decay’ model; that reported arable yields were consistent with exogenous variables; and that arable rents were set with economic variables in mind.

Marine fungal biodiversity remains vastly understudied, and even less is known of their biogeography and the processes responsible for driving these distributions in marine environments. We investigated the fungal communities associated with the seagrass Enhalus acoroides collected from Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia to test the hypothesis that fungal communities are homogeneous throughout the study area. Seagrass samples were separated into different structures (leaves, roots, and rhizomes), and a sediment sample was collected next to each plant. Amplicon sequencing of the fungal internal transcribed spacer 1 and subsequent analysis revealed significant differences in fungal communities collected from different locations and different structures. We show a significant pattern of distance decay, with samples collected close to each other having more similar fungal communities in comparison with those that are more distant, indicating dispersal limitations and/or differences in habitat type are contributing to the observed biogeographic patterns. These results add to our understanding of the seagrass ecosystem in an understudied region of the world that is also the global epicenter of seagrass diversity. This work has implications for seagrass management and conservation initiatives, and we recommend that fungal community composition be a consideration for any seagrass transplant or restoration programme., Examining marine fungi associated with the seagrass, Enhalus acoroides.

The growing appreciation of distance decay as an important parameter necessary for estimating willingness to pay (WTP) is hugely recognized in the literature. In this paper, we estimated the extent to which distance decay and individual's socioeconomic characteristics influence the WTP for restoration of environmental quality attributes in the Heihe River Basin. A choice experiment technique was used to evaluate the household's WTP for the improvements in local environmental attributes. The results of mixed logit model significant impact of distance on the individual's WTP for the improvements in environmental attributes. Findings of the study revealed that people living within 25 km from the river are willing to pay more for an increase in the river water quality level, a reduction in sandstorm days, and an increase in the area of the east Juyan Lake than the people living within the range of 50 km and much more compared to 50 km away from the river. Based on the socioeconomic characteristics, it is concluded that the level of education, age, household's annual income, and household size have a significant effect on the WTP. Results of the implicit prices for each attribute showed the preferences of the inhabitants for every attribute, where the highest WTP in pooled data was recorded for river water quality level (i.e., RMB 124.81/year) and the lowest for leisure and entertainment (i.e., RMB 0.40/year). The highest WTP for water quality suggests that water quality level was the most favored attribute compared to others, subject to the given conditions of water quality and the river basin.

This study examines the spatial characteristics of vehicular terror attacks in Israel from a “micro place” perspective at the street segment level. Utilizing data obtained from the Israel Security Agency, Israel National police, and open sources, the study analyzes the 71 vehicular attacks carried out in Israel between 2000 and 2017. In addition to examining the hot-spots at which attacks occurred, we also identify “hot routes”, estimated journey to attack routes. We move beyond traditional approaches by calculating and comparing generalized Gini coefficients and their Lorenz curves for both the hot spots and hot routes. Tight spatial clustering in Jerusalem and the West Bank is found to be characteristic of this type of attack, which is limited by a range geographic constraints. Hot routes are identified as being highly concentrated at the street-segment level, although they are relatively less concentrated than hot-spots. Additionally, the presence of a strong distance decay function is confirmed. The findings indicate that the laws of crime concentration are applicable to the case of lone terrorist vehicular attacks. The results demonstrate the utility of the methodological approach to examining specific types of terror attacks. Such approaches may be useful for informing environmental based prevention policies and strategies.

The emergence of conservation criminology over the past decade provides a unique insight into patterns of wildlife crime. Wildlife crime has a dramatic impact on many vulnerable species and represents a significant challenge to the management of protected areas around the world. This paper contributes to the field of conservation criminology by examining the travel patterns of fishing poachers in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. The results demonstrate that distance is a key feature of offender target selection, reflecting the established environmental criminology concept of distance decay. The analysis also reveals a significant relationship between individual no-take zones and regional population areas. The applicability of a nodal-oriented approach to wildlife crime prevention is discussed.

Conservation Trust for North Carolina (CTNC) collaborates with the US National Park Service to preserve land along North Carolina's Blue Ridge Parkway. Escalating pressures from development in the region are threatening the park's scenic views, the primary visitor attraction. A ranked mapping of land parcels for conservation that takes into account visibility is therefore crucial for the park's sustainable management and success. The visibility of parcels within a two mile (3.22 km) buffer of the Parkway was modeled in a GIS-based viewshed decision support system. Using distance decay weightings and LiDAR data to capture obstructive vegetation curtains while driving and at scenic overlooks, a realistic representation of visitor experience was replicated and validated using satellite imagery. This decision support system allows for the efficient allocation of limited conservation resources based on the ranks of over 30,000 parcels within the study area and provides a replicable methodology for similar conservation planning elsewhere.

We tested whether biogeographic patterns characteristic of species diversity and composition may also apply to community assembly by investigating geographic variation in the pattern (PSA) (aggregation versus segregation) and strength of species associations (SSA) in flea and mite communities harbored by small mammalian hosts in Western Siberia. We asked whether (a) there is a relationship between latitude and PSA or SSA and (b) similarities in PSA or SSA follow a distance decay pattern or if they are better explained by variation in environmental factors (altitude, amount of vegetation, precipitation, and air temperature). We used a sign of a co-occurrence metric (the C-score) as an indicator of PSA and its absolute standardized value as a measure of SSA. We analyzed data using logistic and linear models, generalized dissimilarity modeling (GDM), and a logistic version of the multiple regression on distance matrices (MRM). The majority of the C-scores of the observed presence/absence matrices indicated a tendency to species aggregation rather than segregation. No effect of latitude on PSA or SSA was found. The dissimilarity in PSA was affected by environmental dissimilarity in mite compound communities only. A relatively large proportion of the deviance of spatial variation in SSA was explained by the GDMs in infracommunities, but not component communities, and in only three (of seven) and two (of eight) host species of fleas and mites, respectively. The best predictors of dissimilarity in SSA in fleas differed between host species, whereas the same factor (precipitation) was the best predictor of dissimilarity in SSA in mites. We conclude that PSA and SSA in parasite communities rarely conform to biogeographic rules. However, when a biogeographic pattern is detected, its manifestation differs among hosts and between ectoparasite taxa.

With more than 15 sources of obsidian and other lithic materials, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho is one of the richest toolstone regions in northwestern North America. This article introduces a quantitative assessment technique to compare attributes of seven Yellowstone obsidians used by Native Americans over at least 11,000 years. The proposed assessment technique is replicable and adaptable to other regions. This article also analyzes the procurement, use, and distribution of the poorly studied Cougar Creek obsidian. Archaeological research documented Cougar Creek obsidian outcrops, procurement areas, and secondary processing sites. Native Americans acquired the material at surface exposures, as well as occasional trench and pit excavations. There is a significant distance decay reduction in its use, especially when compared with Obsidian Cliff obsidian. Using a weighted z-score analysis, the material attributes of Cougar Creek were compared with those of six regional obsidians to determine the factors involved in their differential use. Based on these rankings, Cougar Creek obsidian experienced low demand and usage due to poor quality and availability. In contrast, due to their high quality, abundance, and aesthetics, Obsidian Cliff and Bear Gulch obsidians were preferred for stone tool production.

QUESTION: To better understand the influence of deep-time diversification on extant plant communities, we assessed how community dissimilarity increases with spatial and climatic distances at multiple taxonomic ranks (species, genus, family, and order) in angiosperm trees. We tested the prediction that the dissimilarity–distance relationship should change across taxonomic ranks depending on the deep-time diversification in different biogeographical regions reflecting geohistories and geographical settings. LOCATION: Global. METHODS: Using a data set of plot-based surveys across the globe (861 plots), we compiled a community composition matrix comprising 21,455 species, 2,741 genera, 240 families, and 57 orders. We then calculated Sørensen's pairwise dissimilarity (βsor), and its turnover (βsim) and nestedness (βsne) components, among plots within seven biogeographical regions. Finally, we modeled the relationships between the biotic dissimilarities and the spatial/climatic distances at each taxonomic rank, and compared them among regions. RESULTS: βsor and βsim increased with increasing spatial and climatic distance in all biogeographical regions: βsim was dominant in all biogeographical regions in general, while βsne showed relatively high contributions to total dissimilarity in the temperate regions with historically unstable climatic conditions. The βsim-distance curve was more saturated at smaller spatial scales in the tropics than in the temperate regions. In general, the curves became flatter at higher taxonomic ranks (order or family), with the exception of Africa, North America, and Australia, pointing to region-specific geographical constraints. CONCLUSIONS: Compositional dissimilarity was generally shaped through the abrupt turnover of species along spatial/climatic gradients. The relatively high importance of the nestedness component in the temperate regions suggests that historical dispersal filters related to extinction/colonization may play important roles. Region-specific changes in the turnover and nestedness components across taxonomic ranks suggest differential imprints of historical diversification over deep evolutionary time in shaping extant diversity patterns in each biogeographical region. Financial support was provided by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (no. 20H03328), the Program for Advancing Strategic International Networks to Accelerate the Circulation of Talented Researchers by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Environment Research and Technology Development fund (JPMEERF20184002) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Supplementary feeding of wildlife is widespread, being undertaken by more than half of households in many countries. However, the impact that these supplemental resources have is unclear, with impacts assumed to be restricted to urban ecosystems. We reveal the pervasiveness of supplementary foodstuffs in the diet of a wild bird using metabarcoding of blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) faeces collected in early spring from a 220km transect in Scotland with a large urbanisation gradient. Supplementary foodstuffs were present in the majority of samples, with peanut (Arachis hypogaea) the single commonest (either natural or supplementary) dietary item. Consumption rates exhibited a distance decay from human habitation but remained high at several hundred metres from the nearest household and continued to our study limit of 1.4km distant. Supplementary food consumption was associated with a near quadrupling of blue tit breeding density and a five-day advancement of breeding phenology. We show that woodland bird species using supplementary food have increasing UK population trends, while species that don’t, and/or are outcompeted by blue tits, are likely to be declining. We suggest that the impacts of supplementary feeding are larger and more spatially extensive than currently appreciated and could be disrupting population and ecosystem dynamics.

Previous works on journey-to-crime research failed to examine the role of geographic background. This study investigates the journey-to-crime patterns of electric-bicycle thieves in Beijing. To examine the impact of geographic background on offenders’ travel behavior, the offenders are classified into native and migrant groups and their residing places into urban core and suburb areas. The native offenders who lived in urban core areas were found to make the shortest journey-to-crime trips; the offenders who lived in suburb areas, regardless of their migration status, traveled farther than their counterparts. Compared to the native offenders, the migrant offenders were more likely to make cross-boundary journey-to-crime trips, meaning that they make more trips from urban core areas to suburb or vice versa. Distance decay effect was revealed for all offender groups; but the effect is the strongest for the native offenders who lived in the urban core areas. In addition to the distribution of an offender’s activity anchor locations and the offense opportunities, we believe that an offender’s journey-to-crime trips are related to their spatial knowledge of the city. Our finding of the migrant offenders making longer journey-to-crime trips than their native offender counterparts may suggest that their trips are largely defined by their activity spaces and spatial awareness of the City when compared with the native offenders.

The spatial diffusion of epidemic disease follows distance decay law in geography and social physics, but the mathematical models of distance decay depend on concrete spatio-temporal conditions. This paper is devoted to modeling spatial diffusion patterns of COVID-19 stemming from Wuhan city to Hubei province, China. The modeling approach is to integrate analytical method and experimental method. The local gravity model is derived from allometric scaling and global gravity model, and then the parameters of the local gravity model are estimated by observational data and least squares calculation. The main results are as below. The local gravity model based on power law decay can effectively describe the diffusion patterns and process of COVID-19 in Hubei Province, and the goodness of fit of the gravity model based on negative exponential decay to the observational data is not satisfactory. Further, the goodness of fit of the model to data entirely became better and better over time, the size elasticity coefficient increases first and then decreases, and the distance attenuation exponent decreases first and then increases. Moreover, the significance of spatial autoregressive coefficient in the model is low, and the confidence level is less than 80%. The conclusions can be reached as follows. (1) The spatial diffusion of COVID-19 of Hubei bears long range effect, and the size of a city and the distance of the city to Wuhan affect the total number of confirmed cases. (2) Wuhan direct transmission is the main process in the spatial diffusion of COVID-19 in Hubei at the early stage, and the horizontal transmission between regions is not significant. (3) The effect of spatial lockdown and isolation measures taken by Chinese government against the transmission of COVID-19 is obvious. This study suggests that the role of urban gravity (size and distance) should be taken into account to prevent and control epidemic disease.

Combining field collected and remotely sensed (RS) data represents one of the most promising approaches for an extensive and up-to-date ecosystem assessment. We investigated the potential of the so called spectral variability hypothesis (SVH) in linking field-collected and remote-sensed data in Mediterranean coastal dunes and explored if spectral diversity provides reliable information to monitor floristic diversity, as well as the consistency of such information in altered ecosystems due to plant invasions. We analyzed alpha diversity and beta diversity, integrating floristic field and Remote-Sensing PlanetScope data in the Tyrrhenian coast (Central Italy). We explored the relationship among alpha field diversity (species richness, Shannon index, inverse Simpson index) and spectral variability (distance from the spectral centroid index) through linear regressions. For beta diversity, we implemented a distance decay model (DDM) relating field pairwise (Jaccard similarities index, Bray–Curtis similarities index) and spectral pairwise (Euclidean distance) measures. We observed a positive relationship between alpha diversity and spectral heterogeneity with richness reporting the higher R score. As for DDM, we found a significant relationship between Bray–Curtis floristic similarity and Euclidean spectral distance. We provided a first assessment of the relationship between floristic and spectral RS diversity in Mediterranean coastal dune habitats (i.e., natural or invaded). SVH provided evidence about the potential of RS for estimating diversity in complex and dynamic landscapes.

Place: Hoboken Publisher: Wiley WOS:000552511100001; International audience; A full understanding of the origin and maintenance of beta-diversity patterns in a region requires exploring the relationships of both taxonomic and phylogenetic beta-diversity (TBD and PBD, respectively), and their respective turnover and nestedness components, with geographic and environmental distances. Here, we simultaneously investigated all these aspects of beta-diversity for angiosperms in China. Specifically, we evaluated the relative importance of environmental filtering vs dispersal limitation processes in shaping beta-diversity patterns. We found that TBD and PBD as quantified using a moving window approach decreased towards higher latitudes across the whole of China, and their turnover components were correlated with latitude more strongly than their nestedness components. When quantifying beta-diversity as pairwise distances, geographic and climatic distances across China together explained 60 and 53% of the variation in TBD and PBD, respectively. After the variation in beta-diversity explained by climatic distance was accounted for, geographic distance independently explained about 23 and 12% of the variation in TBD and PBD, respectively, across China. Overall, our results suggest that environmental filtering based on climatic tolerance conserved across lineages is the main force shaping beta-diversity patterns for angiosperms in China.

Research Highlights: Variations in species composition across church forests in northern Ethiopia were driven more by variations in human disturbance and community forest management than forest size. The degree of human disturbance acted as an environmental filter that selected for weedy, exotic, and wind-dispersed species regardless of forest size. Background and Objectives: Forest fragmentation can profoundly influence the long-term persistence of forests on the landscape. Habitat fragmentation can increase edge effects and limit dispersal between forest patches. In the South Gondar Administrative Zone in northern Ethiopia, many of the remaining forests are small sacred church forests governed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Materials and Methods: We examined the drivers of woody plant species composition across 46 church forests in this region, including the influence of elevation, forest size, distance between forests, human disturbance, the presence of a wall, and the importance of local/individual community forest management at the Woreda level. We also examined how dispersal syndromes are influenced by increasing distance between forests and the extent of human disturbance within forests. Results: We found that elevational zone, distance between forests, the degree of human disturbance and Woreda had the greatest effect on species composition. Forest size and the presence of a wall were not significant drivers of species composition in these forests. Conclusions: We propose connecting forests through corridors or scattered trees to increase dispersal between forests, and greater on-the-ground protection efforts to restrict people and cattle from leaving the main trails within sacred forests.

Accessibility to delivery care is crucial for improving maternal health, which is an important policy goal to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being in China and worldwide, especially with the change of the family planning policy in China in 2016. This study develops a set of methods to project the population of women of child-bearing age and birth population and assess the accessibility to delivery care services in Hubei Province. The Cohort-Component projection method with various scenarios was applied to project the population of women of children-bearing age in 2030. A Gravity-based Variable Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (GV2SFCA) method is developed, which takes into account the heterogeneous catchment areas and distance decay effects for different regions and various levels of delivery care services. The parameters are calibrated by using medical records with patients' addresses. The traditional Supply-Demand Ratio method is also applied. The results demonstrate an overall decreasing trend of birth population in Hubei in all scenarios, but with significant disparities across regions. In 2016, 28% of districts fail to reach the policy goal with 17 beds per thousand births. In 2030, accessibility to delivery care is projected to increase in 98% of districts, while there are still 22% of districts that fail to reach the policy goal. The accessibility scores are further combined with the densities of birth population to identify shortage areas of delivery care. 7% and 6% of districts are classified as Major Shortage Areas in 2016 and 2030, respectively. The findings shed lights on the distributions and future changes of accessibility to and shortage areas of delivery care in Hubei, which can provide evidence-based recommendations for planning and policymaking. It also provides innovative methods for more accurately assessing accessibility to delivery care.

Science is becoming increasingly international in terms of breaking down walls in its pursuit of high impact. Despite geographical location and distance still being major barriers for scientific collaboration, little is known about whether high-impact collaborations are similarly constrained by geography compared to collaborations of average impact. To address this question, we analyze Web of Science (WoS) data on international collaboration between global leader cities in science production. We report an increasing intensity of international city-city collaboration and find that average distance of collaboration of the strongest connections has slightly increased, but distance decay has remained stable over the last three decades. However, high-impact collaborations span large distances by following similar distance decay. This finding suggests that a larger geographical reach of research collaboration should be aimed for to support high-impact science. The creation of the European Research Area (ERA) represents an effective action that has deepened intracontinental research collaborations and the position of the European Union (EU) in global science. Yet, our results provide new evidence that global scientific leaders are not sufficiently collaborative in carrying out their big science projects.