Livelihood changes and evolution of upland ethnic communities driven by tourism: a case study in Guizhou Province,southwest China

As an effective livelihood approach to alleviate poverty without rural population migration, ethnic tourism has become the primary choice of economic development in ethnic areas worldwide in addition to traditional livelihood approaches. This article applies the theories of livelihood to study the community evolution driven by tourism livelihood and examine three mountainous tourism communities in different stages of tourist area life cycle. Drawing on the methods of GIS spatial analysis, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires, this article proposes a sustainable livelihood framework for ethnic tourism to explore the evolution of ethnic tourism communities by identifying changes in livelihood assets (natural, financial, social, cultural and human capitals) in the process of tourism development. The results show that the development of ethnic tourism has led to changes in the increase of building land, and the diversification of land use functions with a trend of shifting from meeting local villagers' living needs to satisfying tourists, income composition and uneven distribution of tourism income spatially. Ethnic tourism also led to the deterioration of traditional social management structure, collapse of neighboring relationship, the over- commercialization and staged authenticity of ethnic culture, as well as the gradual vanish of agricultural knowledge with a trend of increasing modern business knowledge and higher education. In addition, these changes, involving livelihood assets from natural, economic, human, social and cultural aspects are interrelated and interactive, which form new evolution characters of ethnic community. This study reveals the conflicts over livelihood approaches which have formed new vulnerabilities to impact on sustainable evolution of ethnic communities. This research provides implications for achieving the sustainable development of ethnic communities with the driving force of tourism livelihood.     

A public Cloud-based China’s Landslide Inventory Database (CsLID): development,zone, and spatiotemporal analysis for significant historical events, 1949-2011

Landslide inventory plays an important role in recording landslide events and showing their temporal-spatial distribution. This paper describes the development, visualization, and analysis of a China's Landslide Inventory Database (CsLID) by utilizing Google’s public cloud computing platform. Firstly, CsLID (Landslide Inventory Database) compiles a total of 1221 historical landslide events spanning the years 1949-2011 from relevant data sources. Secondly, the CsLID is further broken down into six zones for characterizing landslide cause-effect, spatiotemporal distribution, fatalities, and socioeconomic impacts based on the geological environment and terrain. The results show that among all the six zones, zone V, located in Qinba and Southwest Mountainous Area is the most active landslide hotspot with the highest landslide hazard in China. Additionally, the Google public cloud computing platform enables the CsLID to be easily accessible, visually interactive, and with the capability of allowing new data input to dynamically augment the database. This work developed a cyber-landslide inventory and used it to analyze the landslide temporal-spatial distribution in China.     

Rank-size distributions of Chinese cities: Macro and micro patterns

A large number of studies have been conducted to find a better fit for city rank-size distributions in different countries. Many theoretical curves have been proposed, but no consensus has been reached. This study argues for the importance of examining city rank-size distribution across different city size scales. In addition to focusing on macro patterns, this study examines the micro patterns of city rank-size distributions in China. A moving window method is developed to detect rank-size distributions of cities in different sizes incrementally. The results show that micro patterns of the actual city rank-size distributions in China are much more complex than those suggested by the three theoretical distributions examined(Pareto, quadratic, and q-exponential distributions). City size distributions present persistent discontinuities. Large cities are more evenly distributed than small cities and than that predicted by Zipf′s law. In addition, the trend is becoming more pronounced over time. Medium-sized cities became evenly distributed first and then unevenly distributed thereafter. The rank-size distributions of small cities are relatively consistent. While the three theoretical distributions examined in this study all have the ability to detect the overall dynamics of city rank-size distributions, the actual macro distribution may be composed of a combination of the three theoretical distributions.     

Extraction of basic trends of urban expansion in China over past 40 years from satellite images

If urban sprawl is to be avoided in China in the next ten years, it is not only crucial to understand the overall history, current status, and future trends of urban expansion there, but also these differences, and this is presently lacking. In this study, remotely sensed images with approximately 30 m spatial resolution were used to quantitatively assess the spatial and temporal patterns of urban expansion of 60 Chinese cities(1973–2013). Urban-expansion-process curves of the cities studied were drawn using annual expansion area as an indicator. Curve similarity analysis generated four basic process modes of urban expansion in China. These included cities that: 1) peaked around 2004 and then decelerated; 2) peaked around 2010 and then decelerated; 3) showed sustained acceleration, and 4) showed continued deceleration. Four basic process modes represented cities under different levels of development stage. Geographic location was found to be the most related characteristic to urban expansion process. Regional development policies at the national level in each region also showed highly temporal consistency with fluctuation characteristics of urban expansion process. Urban characteristic such as population size and administrative level were not found to be significantly related to urban expansion-process modes. Understanding the basic process-mode categories well is extremely important for future regional-balance planning and development of macroeconomic policies.     

Effect of benzo[a]pyrene on detoxification and the activity of antioxidant enzymes of marine microalgae

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of benzo[a]pyrene(Ba P) on the detoxification and antioxidant systems of two microalgae,Isochrysis zhanjiangensis and Platymonas subcordiformis.In our study,these two algae were exposed to Ba P for 4 days at three different concentrations including 0.5 μg~(L-1)(low),3 μg~(L-1)(mid) and 18 μg~(L-1)(high).The activity of detoxification enzymes,ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase(EROD) and glutathione S-transferase(GST) increased in P.subcordiformis in all Ba P-treated groups.In I.zhanjiangensis,the activity of these two enzymes increased at the beginning of exposure,and then decreased in the groups treated with mid-and high Ba P.The activity of antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase(SOD) increased in I.zhanjiangensis in all Ba P-treated groups,and then decreased in high Ba P-treated group,while no significant change was observed in P.subcordiformis.The activity of antioxidant enzyme catalase(CAT) increased in I.zhanjiangensis and P.subcordiformis in all Ba Ptreated groups.The content of malondialdehyde(MDA) in Isochrysis zhanjiangensis increased first,and then decreased in high Ba P-treated group,while no change occurred in P.subcordiformis.These results demonstrated that Ba P significantly influenced the activity of detoxifying and antioxidant enzymes in microalgae.The metabolic related enzymes(EROD,GST and CAT) may serve as sensitive biomarkers of measuring the contamination level of Ba P in marine water.     

Development of three multiplex PCR primer sets for ark shell (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Scapharca broughtonii</Emphasis>) and their validation in parentage assignment

Scapharca broughtonii is a commercially important and over-exploited species. In order to investigate its genetic diversity and population structure, 43 novel polymorphic microsatellites were isolated and characterized. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 22 with an average of 6.93, and the observed and expected heterozygosities varied between 0.233 and 1.000, and 0.250 and 0.953, with an average of 0.614 and 0.707, respectively. Three highly informative multiplex PCRs were developed from nine of those microsatellites for S. broughtonii. We evaluated and validated these multiplex PCRs in 8 full-sib families. The average polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.539. The frequency of null alleles was estimated as 3.13% of all the alleles segregation based on a within-family analysis of Mendelian segregation patterns. Parentage analysis of real offspring demonstrated that 100% of all offspring were unambiguously allocated to a pair of parents based on 3 multiplex sets. Those 43 microsatellite loci with high variability will be helpful for the analysis of population genetics and conservation of wild stock of S. broughtonii. The 3 sets of multiplex PCRs could be an important tool of pedigree reconstruction, population genetic analysis and brood stock management.     

Effect of bioactive peptides (BPs) on the development of Pacific white shrimp (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Litopenaeus vannamei</Emphasis> Boone, 1931)

The present study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of replacing fish meal (FM) with bioactive peptides (BPs) in diet of white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei). The changes in growth performance, body composition, non-specific immunity, and water quality were examined after the shrimp were fed four diets, in which 0% (control), 33.3%, 66.7% and 100% of FM was replaced by BPs, respectively. The groups were designated as Con, 1/3BPs, 2/3BPs, and 3/3BPs. A total of 720 shrimp with an initial body weight of 1.46 ± 0.78 g were fed the experimental diets for 56 days. The results revealed that: 1) the weight gain rate (WGR) in 1/3BPs, 2/3BPs, and 3/3BPs was significantly higher than that in Con (P < 0.05), while no significant difference was found on survival rate and feed conversion ratio (FCR); 2) the whole-body crude protein (CP) and crude lipids (CL) were significantly different among groups, while there was no significant difference between crude ash and phosphorus contents; 3) the levels of acid phosphatase (ACP), lysozyme (LZM), superoxide dismutase (SOD), phenol oxidase (PO) and bactericidal activity increased significantly with the inclusion of BPs; 4) in terms of water quality, no significant difference was found in pH and dissolved oxygen among diets during the whole experimental period. Moreover, even though nitrite and ammonium levels tended to increase with time, there was no significant difference among groups. The results indicated that BPs is an applicable alternative of protein source, which can substitute FM in the diets of L. vannamei; it is able to effectively promote growth performance and improve immunity. Moreover, BPs in the diets had no negative impact on water quality.     

Growth performance of larval and juvenile manila clam (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Ruditapes philippinarum</Emphasis>) from divergently selected individuals of a full-sib family

In this study, the method of divergent selection was employed to test the larval and juvenile growth performance within a full-sib family of Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum. The 10% largest and 10% smallest clam individuals (on the basis of shell length) of a full-sib family were selected as parents for the fast and slow growing lines, respectively. The difference in shell length was significant among the three lines (fast, control, and slow) tested. The sequence of shell length were fast line > control line > slow line. The responses to selection, realized heritability, and genetic gain were 0.06%–0.81%, 0.04%–0.47% and 0.58%–18.89% in the fast direction, respectively; and were 0.14%–1.27%, 0.08%–0.73%, and 0.31%–49.03% in the slow direction, respectively. The results suggested that there was a large portion of additive genetic variance affecting the growth in the full-sib family. Selection in the fast direction within the full-sib family would greatly improve the growth of R. philippinarum.