Land use and land cover changes in small Carpathian catchments between the mid-19~(th) and early 21~(st) centuries and their record on the land surface

Land use and land cover(LULC) changes and their impact on the mountain environment were studied in six catchments(～10 km~2 each) in the Polish Western Carpathians from the mid-19~(th) century to the early 21~(st) century. The analysis of cadastral and orthophoto maps indicates that during the investigated period, the forest area increased, quantified by an annual change index(Annch), between +0.12% to +0.27%, with a decrease of arable land index to –0.45% and –2.28% in the analysed catchments. LULC changes were accompanied by a continuous increase in settlement developments(residential and farming houses) by 50%-140% as well as significant changes related to their spatial distribution. Abandonment of arable land and forest succession have resulted in the geomorphological transformation of hillslopes, which predominantly includes a decrease in used road density, their transformation to road cuts and gorges. Overpopulation and the domination agriculture in the past caused the expansion of unpaved roads density and then the fragmentation of hillslopes, as well as the development of agricultural terraces.     

Land use and land cover changes in Jahlma watershed of the Lahaul valley, cold desert region of the northwestern Himalaya, India

Land use and land cover changes that occurred during the period from 1991 to 2001 in the Jahlma watershed of the Lahaul valley, a cold desert region of the northwestern Himalaya, were evaluated using land use data and visual interpretation of IRS Satellite imageries. The results revealed that out of the six major land use forms within the watershed, land areas under agriculture, kitchen garden and settlement land were found increased, whereas a declining trend was recorded in areas under grassland, barren land and Salix plantation. The cultivated land within the watershed increased from 54.87 % （total of agriculture land, kitchen garden, grassland, barren land, Salix plantation and residential area） in 1991 to 56.89 % in 2OOl, corresponding to an expansion of 4.41 ha. On the other hand, the areas of grassland decreased from 31.41% in 1991 to 29.81% in 2001. Such a dramatic land use and land cover changes taking place within the 33 km^2 watershed area in a single decade deafly indicates the prevailing danger of land degradation and environmental deterioration in the region.     

Inheritance mode of microsatellite loci and their use for kinship analysis in the Pacific oyster （Crassostrea gigas）

Five full-sib families of the Pacific oyster （Crassostrea gigas） larvae were used to study the mode of inheritance at eight microsatellite loci, and the feasibility of these markers for kinship estimate was also examined. All eight microsatellite loci were compatible with Mendelian inheritance. Neither evidence of sex-linked barriers to transmission nor evidence of major barriers to fertilization between gametes from the parents was shown. Three of the eight loci showed the presence of null alleles in four families, demonstrating the need to conduct comprehensive species-specific inheritance studies for microsatellite loci used in population genetic studies. Although the null allele heterozygotes were considered as homozygotes in the calculation of genetic distance, offspring from five full-sib families were unambiguously discriminated in the neighbor-joining dendrogram. This result indicates that the microsatellite markers may be capable of discriminating between related and unrelated oyster larvae in the absence of pedigree information, and is applicable to the investigation of the effective number of parents contributing to the hatchery population of the Pacific oyster.