Characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes： A comparative study between three metropolitan areas of Japan

Local spatial interaction between neighborhood land-use categories （i.e. neighborhood interaction） is an important factor which affects urban land-use change patterns. Therefore,it is a key component in cellular automata （CA）-based urban geosimulation models towards the simulation and forecast of urban land-use changes. Purpose of this paper is to interpret the similarities and differences of the characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes of different metropolitan areas in Japan for providing empirical materials to understand the mechanism of urban land-use changes and construct urban geosimulation models. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes of three metropolitan areas in Japan,i.e. Tokyo,Osaka,and Nagoya,were compared using such aids as the neighborhood interaction model and similarity measure function. As a result,urban land-use in the three metropolitan areas was found to have had similar structure and patterns during the study period. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes are quite different from land-use categories,meaning that the mechanism of urban land-use changes comparatively differs among land-use categories. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction reveal the effect of spatial autocorrelation in the spatial process of urban land-use changes in the three metropolitan areas,which correspond with the characteristics of agglomeration of urban land-use allocation in Japan. Neighborhood interaction amidst urban land-use changes between the three metropolitan areas generally showed similar characteristics. The regressed neighborhood interaction coefficients in the models may represent the general characteristics of neighborhood effect on urban land-use changes in the cities of Japan. The results provide very significant materials for exploring the mechanism of urban land-use changes and the construction of universal urban geosimulation models which may be applied to any city in Japan.

Neighborhood effects on tree growth in a Fagus sylvatica - Abies alba forest following an ice storm

Ice storms can cause substantial damage to tree crowns and lead to growth reduction.However,in uneven-aged stands,the growth of an individual tree may also increase due to crown release caused by the damage or mortality of neighboring trees.Three years after the devastating ice storm in 2014 in mixed uneven-aged Dinaric forests(Croatia),we cored 156 European beech(Fagus sylvatica)and 85 silver fir(Abies alba)trees across 20 permanent sample plots to study the post-storm growth response as a function of tree,stand,site,spatial arrangement and local competition factors.The ice storm damaged over 84% of trees on the sampled plots.Among the cored trees,52.7% exhibited growth reduction,which on average amounted to3.1%relative to the pre-disturbance average.Trees with less than 40% crown damage maintained their pre-disturbance growth rates or experienced only minor growth suppression.While 60% of beech trees suffered a growth reduction at an average rate of 7.2%,the average radial increment of fir after the storm was 14.0% higher compared to the pre-storm rate.A linear mixedeffects model suggests that the growth response can largely be explained by the focal and neighboring tree species identity,tree competition pressure,focal and neighboring tree damage,crown size,slenderness index and stoniness.Growth release was positively associated with fir,inverse distance-weighted crown damage of the nearest neighbor,shorter crowns,slenderness,less stony sites and less damaged trees.The analysis suggests that at the same level of local competition load,trees with a broadleaved and damaged nearest neighbor are more likely to experience growth release than those with a coniferous or undamaged nearest neighbor.This implies that unevenaged stands with a substantial presence and mingling of both conifers and broadleaves are expected to be more resilient to ice storms and are less likely to suffer growth reduction.

Effect of Growing Size of Interaction Neighbors on the Evolution of Cooperation in Spatial Snowdrift Game

In this paper,we study the influence of the size of interaction neighbors(k) on the evolution of cooperation in the spatial snowdrift game.At first,we consider the effects of noise K and cost-to-benefit ratio r,the simulation results indicate that the evolution of cooperation depends on the combined action of noise and cost-to-benefit ratio.For a lower r,the cooperators are multitudinous and the cooperation frequency ultimately increases to 1 as the increase of noise.However,for a higher r,the defectors account for the majority of the game and dominate the game if the noise is large enough.Then we mainly investigate how k influences the evolution of cooperation by varying the noise in detail.We find that the frequency of cooperators is closely related to the size of neighborhood and cost-to-benefit ratio r.In the case of lower r,the augmentation of k plays no positive role in promoting the cooperation as compared with that of k = 4,while for higher r the cooperation is improved for a growing size of neighborhood.At last,based on the above discussions,we explore the cluster-forming mechanism among the cooperators.The current results are beneficial to further understand the evolution of cooperation in many natural,social and biological systems.

Seasonal characteristics and determinants of tree growth in a Chinese subtropical forest

Aims To quantify the seasonal differences in effects of leaf habit,species identity,initial diameter,neighborhood interaction and stand environment on tree absolute diameter growth rates in a subtropical forest in China.Methods We used man-made dendrometer bands to record radial increments of all trees with diameter at breast height(DBH)≥5 cm and height≥3 m within 25 comparative study plots(30×30 m for each)of the‘Biodiversity-Ecosystem Functioning Experiment China’(BEF-China)in the Gutianshan National Nature Reserve,Zhejiang Province,China.We measured stem circumferences twice a year from 2011 to 2014 to calculate absolute diameter growth rate of a warm and wet season(WWS,April to September)and a dry and cold season(DCS,October to the next March)for each individual tree:annual growth(GR_(year)),growth during the WWS(GR_(WWS))and growth during the DCS(GR_(DCS)).We firstly tested the differences in growth rates between different seasons using paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction.Then we applied linear mixed models to explore the effects of leaf habit,species identity,initial diameter,neighborhood interaction(indicated by richness,density and total basal area of all neighboring trees within a radius of 5 m around target trees),stand age and topography(elevation,slope and aspect)on tree growth rates of the two different seasons in three deciduous and 14 evergreen species.Important Findings GR_(year),GR_(WWS)and GR_(DCS)varied between 0.04-0.50 cm year^(−1)(mean=0.21),0.03-0.46 cm season^(−1)(mean=0.18)and 0.01-0.05 cm season^(−1)(mean=0.03)across the 17 species,respectively.GR_(WWS)was significantly higher than GR_(DCS)for all species.Growth rates of faster growing species tended to have larger absolute differences between the WWS and DCS.Tree growth rates of both seasons and of the year(GR_(year),GR_(WWS)and GR_(DCS))varied significantly among leaf habit and species,and increased allometrically with initial diameter,decreased with stand age,but were not significantly related to topography and neighborhood richness or density.GR_(WWS)decreased with neighborhood total basal area,while GR_(DCS)did not.In conclusion,species might the temporally complementary,contributing to plot growth at different times of the year.