祁连山北坡水热条件对林草分布的影响

采用气候学方法,计算了祁连山北坡不同海拔处的年降水量和乔木林年蒸散量,据此确定了满足乔木林需水的高度带。分析所得的7月均温10℃和6℃,可分别作为乔木林和灌木林生长的温度下限指标。据祁连山北坡水热条件的分布特点,确定了海拔2500—3200米处适宜发展乔木林,其生长以海拔2700—2900米处为最佳,海拔3200—3700米处适宜发展灌木林,其余山区只能生长草类。     

Pastoralists’ perceptions and realities of vegetation change and browse consumption in the northern Kalahari, Namibia

Pastoral production around artificial watering points in semi-arid environments affects the density and composition of plant communities. In the Kalahari desert of southwestern Africa, bush encroachment is often regarded as the major form of land degradation resulting from pastoral production around watering points. We investigated the OvaHerero pastoralists’ perceptions of the extent of vegetation change since the establishment of artificial watering points in the northern Kalahari desert of Namibia, and related this to ecological data on vegetation change. We determined the utility of woody vegetation to pastoralists’ livelihoods in terms of provision of construction material, fuel wood and browse. We quantified local knowledge of cattle browse consumption and correlated this with field data. We also assessed the purposes for which major livestock types were used. Our results showed that: (1) pastoral knowledge of bush encroachment and browse consumption was consistent with concurrently collected field data, (2) the current level of bush encroachment was perceived to be beneficial for pastoral production, and (3) cattle played an important role in the production of milk and milk by-products for domestic use, and served as a source of cash income, while sheep and goats were primarily kept for meat consumption. This result contrasts with historical studies that mainly portray cattle as a symbol of social status among OvaHerero pastoralists.     

Power-laws and applications to earthquake populations

In this paper we study the rooted tree model applying the concepts of probability to obtain results of importance in understanding power-law distributions in pure populations and also in an ensemble of pure populations. The well-known Gutenberg-Richter relation, which is an empirical relation providing the number of earthquakes whose magnitude exceeds a given value, is shown to be an asymptotic form of survivor function of earthquake magnitudes. The implications of this model are briefly discussed in relation to other branches of sciences where power-law distributions are encountered.     

Trees as riparian engineers: the Tagliamento river,Italy

Pristine river corridors were characterized by island and floodplain development driven by the inter‐play of flows, sediments and woody vegetation. Here we explore these relationships within topographically controlled settings within the upper, middle and lower reaches of a large, semi‐natural alpine to mediterranean river. These reaches have expanding or contracting valley floors within which we show that there are more or less predictable patterns of stream power and rates of vegetation growth, reflecting water availability during dry periods and also the availability of sand and finer sediment. We relate these to the pattern of island distribution that is repeated within the three reaches and is indicative of the engineering role of riparian trees. Islands are shown to develop within thresholds defined by stream power, rates of woody vegetation growth and rates of sedimentation, and to develop most quickly where riparian species include those capable of sprouting from driftwood. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

南京太平门地段雪松树年轮及其根土中化学元素含量的相关性研究

１９９４年在南京市太平门街道采集了五株雪松的年轮样及其根部土壤（黄棕壤ｐＨ＝６．６８）,分别测定了Ｌｉ、Ａｌ、Ｐ、Ｋ、Ｍｎ、Ｃｏ、Ｃｕ、Ｚｎ、Ｃｄ、Ｂａ和Ｐｂ等１１种化学元素含量,实测结果验证了雪松年轮与其根部当年土壤中化学元素含量满足对数线性相关模式;ｌｇＣ′（Ｚ,ｔ）＝ａ（Ｚ）＋ｂ（Ｚ）ｌｇＣ（Ｚ,ｔ）。根据年轮元素含量Ｃ（Ｚ,ｔ）可以重建过去根土中元素含量Ｃ′（Ｚ,ｔ）,即反映环境（土壤）中元素含量的逐年演变的年份序列。利用Ｃ（Ｚ,ｔ）中最低含量可估算该地段黄棕壤的土壤元素背景值。     

一类龙虾树优美

本文使用交错的与非交错的标号法,证明了一类龙虾树优美。     

古火灾历史重建的研究进展

火是地球系统的重要组成部分,与气候、植被、生物地球化学循环和人类活动密切相关。火对全球气候和生态系统的影响已成为目前全球变化研究的一个热点。火灾发生后会在周围的环境中留下许多燃烧产物,如黑碳、木炭屑、多环芳烃、左旋葡萄糖等,它们广泛存在于海洋、湖泊、河流、土壤和陆地风成沉积物中;还会留下一些火灾痕迹,如树木火疤、土壤磁...     

Recultivation of abandoned agricultural lands in Ukraine: Patterns and drivers

The recent rise in agricultural commodity prices and the expectation that high price will persist have triggered a wave of farmland expansion in regions where land resources are still available. One such region is the former Soviet Union, where the collapse of socialism caused massive agricultural abandonment and where some of these lands are now being brought back into production. Yet, the extent and spatial patterns of recultivation, and what determines these patterns, remains unclear. We examined the extent of recultivation of abandoned agricultural land in Ukraine since 2007 using a new, satellite-based recultivation map and assessed the effect of biophysical and socioeconomic determinants on recultivation patterns using boosted regression trees. We found key predictors of recultivation to be related to the suitability of land for agriculture (i.e., soil quality, temperature). Accessibility to major cities was also important, with most recultivation happening closer to settlements, but this influence varied across Ukraine. Variables related to agricultural management (fertilizer input, mechanization) and demography were negligible in explaining recultivation in our analyses. These factors suggest that recultivation patterns were primarily driven by factors related to land productivity, with recultivation focusing on the most promising areas. Given the remaining large amount of unused agricultural land in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and considering that much abandonment occurred in areas only marginally suited to agriculture, our findings provide important insights into where recultivation can be expected to happen and thus for assessing the potential socioeconomic and environmental impacts of recultivation.     

Automatic estimation of olive tree dendrometric parameters based on airborne laser scanning data using alpha-shape and principal component analysis

The aim of this study is to present an automatic approach for olive tree dendrometric parameter estimation from airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. The proposed method is based on a unique combination of the alpha-shape algorithm applied to normalized point cloud and principal component analysis. A key issue of the alpha-shape algorithm is to define the α parameter, as it directly affects the crown delineation results. We propose to adjust this parameter based on a group of representative trees in an orchard for which the classical field measurements were performed. The best value of the α parameter is one whose correlation coefficient of dendrometric parameters between field measurements and estimated values is the highest. We determined crown diameters as principal components of ALS points representing a delineated crown. The method was applied to a test area of an olive orchard in Spain. The tree dendrometric parameters estimated from ALS data were compared with field measurements to assess the quality of the developed approach. We found the method to be equally good or even superior to previously investigated semi-automatic methods. The average error is 19% for tree height, 53% for crown base height, and 13% and 9% for the length of the longer diameter and perpendicular diameter, respectively.     

Hyperspectral remote sensing analysis of short rotation woody crops grown with controlled nutrient and irrigation treatments

Hyperspectral remote sensing research was conducted to document the biophysical and biochemical characteristics of controlled forest plots subjected to various nutrient and irrigation treatments. The experimental plots were located on the Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC. AISA hyperspectral imagery were analysed using three approaches, including: (1) normalized difference vegetation index based simple linear regression (NSLR), (2) partial least squares regression (PLSR) and (3) machine-learning regression trees (MLRT) to predict the biophysical and biochemical characteristics of the crops (leaf area index, stem biomass and five leaf nutrients concentrations). The calibration and cross-validation results were compared between the three techniques. The PLSR approach generally resulted in good predictive performance. The MLRT approach appeared to be a useful method to predict characteristics in a complex environment (i.e. many tree species and numerous fertilization and/or irrigation treatments) due to its powerful adaptability.