Simple assessment of farmland soil phosphorus loss risk at county scale with high landscape heterogeneity

In order to improve the existing phosphorus index assessment methods,using the interactive evaluation index(IEI)as an auxiliary variable,the geographically weighted regression(GWR)was adopted as prediction means.A method of regional soil phosphorus risk assessment was constructed by modifying phosphorus index model(MPIM).The GWR-IEI method more accurately predicted available phosphorus(AP)and soil organic matter(SOM),and the prediction precision and goodness of fit were high.Compared with the ordinary least square(OLS)method,the relative improvement of the root mean squared errors(RMSE)with the GWR-IEI method reached 28.95%for available phosphorus predicted,while that of SOM was 21.24%.The phosphorus loss risk of most of the study area(95.29%)was moderate to low.The areas featuring an extremely high phosphorus loss accounted for merely 0.33%of the total research area.Phosphorus loss depends on the effects of many factors.Areas which have strong source or transfer factors are not necessarily high-risk areas for phosphorus loss.Only the co-occurrence of transfer and source factors leads to high risk and greater potential for phosphorus loss.The GWR-IEI-MPIM method accurately reflected the degree of risk for phosphorus at the regional scale,which provides a valuable reference for risk assessment of phosphorus.

Advances in Terrestrial Mammal Movement Ecology:An Overview

As a research field which is blooming quickly in recent years,movement ecology has been a worldwide concern and interest.However,movement ecology is so comprehensive and complicated that many articles only focus on few aspects or species.As tracking technologies and methods of movement data analysis develop,the abundance of movement data becomes available for demonstrating more scientific facts about animal movement.This article is aimed to summarize the advances of terrestrial mammal movement ecology in the past years to show its critical and potential research fields,as well as trying to ascertain direction of these advances.

Does landscape context affect pollinationrelated functional diversity and richness of understory flowers in forest fragments of Atlantic Rainforest in southeastern Brazil?

Background:How landscape modifications affect functional diversity of floral characteristics pertinent to pollinators is poorly known.Flowers possess functional traits that sometimes coevolved with pollinators,crucial for the maintenance of both pollinator and plant communities.We evaluated how richness and functional diversity of available understory flowers respond to forest cover and landscape heterogeneity in a multiscale analysis.Plants in bloom were sampled from 25 landscapes in the understory of Atlantic Forest fragments in Brazil.Species were classified into functional groups regarding flower characteristics relevant to pollination.Landscape heterogeneity and forest cover were measured in buffers ranging from 200 to 2000 m from sampling units and their correlation with plant richness and functional diversity was assessed using generalized linear models and further model selection through Akaike’s second-order information criterion.Results:Plants’richness and functional diversity were affected negatively by forest cover.The former responded to forest cover at a regional scale while the latter responded at a local scale.Higher landscape heterogeneity increased richness and functional diversity.Conclusions:Our results showed that forest cover and landscape heterogeneity are important to support biodiversity related to pollination,mostly due to the availability of diversified resources and nesting sites associated to different land-uses for pollinators and flowering plant communities.These findings should highlight,along with forest cover,landscape heterogeneity as an environmental management priority in rural tropical areas for mitigating the loss of plant biodiversity and enhancing ecosystem functioning.

Using a simulation analysis to evaluate the impact of crop mapping error on crop area estimation from stratified sampling

To analyze the efficiency of area estimations(i.e.estimation accuracy and variation of estimation)impacted by crop mapping error,we simulated error at eight levels for thematic maps using a stratified sampling estimation methodology.The results show that the estimation efficiency is influenced by the combination of the sample size and the error level.Evaluating the trade-offs between sample size and error level showed that reducing the crop mapping error level provides the most benefit(i.e.higher estimation efficiency).Further,sampling performance differed based on the heterogeneity of the crop area.The results demonstrated that the influence of increasing the error level on estimation efficiency is more detrimental in heterogeneous areas than in homogeneous ones.Therefore,to obtain higher estimation efficiency,a larger sample size and lower error level or both are needed,especially in heterogeneous areas.We suggest that existing land-cover maps should first be used to determine the heterogeneity of the area.The appropriate sample size for these areas then can be determined according to all three factors:heterogeneity,expected estimation efficiency,and sampling budget.Overall,extending our understanding of the impacts of crop mapping error is necessary for decision making to improve our ability to effectively estimate crop area.

Assessing the bird guild patterns in heterogeneous land use types around Jammu,Jammu and Kashmir,India

Land-use sprawl in the Himalayas has caused the conversion of natural habitat into human-modified habitats,thus degrading ecosystem health.Adaptation of birds to changing physical environment can be well understood by analyzing their habitat preferences,and foraging dynamics explored to a limited extent in the Himalayan region,as yet.To achieve a comprehensive understanding of avian guild structure,we used multivariate statistical techniques to classify bird species according to their similarities in foraging patterns and habitat preferences.Observations based on habitat and diet affinities accounted for rich avian diversity with a total of 208 bird species(about 15%of country’s avifauna)recorded from six different sites during 1 year survey.Unweighted pair-group average cluster analysis performed on the families revealed ten feeding and fifteen habitat guilds among 63 bird families observed.Subtropical forests harbored more species followed by urban forests and agricultural landscapes.Insectivorous and omnivorous outnumbered other feeding guilds in the study area.Bird assemblages were richer in protected areas and semidisturbed landscapes and did not show significant variation between the seasons.Results of the study revealed that different functional groups of birds behaved differently,primarily induced by choice of food.The site heterogeneity favored avifaunal persistence by providing favorable foraging,roosting,and nesting opportunities to birds.Composition of avian guilds indicated level of intactness and ecological integrity of ecosystems studied.This outcome thus sets the background for long-term analysis of bird-habitat relationship and their foraging dynamics.The study has the relevance for decision-makers to integrate avian guild structure as an essential ingredient in formulating conservation strategies.

Immunological effects of nano-enabled hyperthermia for solid tumors: opportunity and challenge

Compared to conventional hyperthermia that is limited by low selectivity and severe side effects,nano-enabled hyperthermia yields great potentials to tackle these limitations for cancer treatment.Another major advance is the observation of immunological responses associated with nano-enabled hyperthermia,which introduces a new avenue,allowing a potential paradigm shift from the acutely effective and cytotoxicity-centric response to the next-phase discovery,i.e.,long-lasting and/or systemic anti-tumor immunity.This perspective first discusses the temperature-gradient and the spatially-structured immunological landscape in solid tumors receiving nano-enabled hyperthermia.This includes the discussion about underlying mechanism such as immunogenic cell death,which initiates a profound immunological chain reaction.In order to propagate the immune activation as a viable therapeutic principle,we further discussed the tumor type-specific complexity in the immunological tumor microenvironment,including the creative design of nano-enabled combination therapy to synergize with nano-enabled hyperthermia.