Designating a greenbelt around the city of Riga, Latvia

Latvian legislation demands that forest protection belts are established around all cities and towns. The main goal of a protection belt is to provide suitable opportunities for recreation to urban dwellers and to minimise any negative impacts caused by urban areas on the surrounding environment. Legislation states the main principles to be adopted, which include the maximum area of protection belts, their integration in territorial development plans and restrictions placed on forest management activities. The largest part of the forest area around Riga is owned by the municipality of Riga, which, as a result, has two competing interests: to satisfy the recreational needs of the inhabitants of Riga, and to maximise the income from its property. In order to compile sufficient background information to solve this problem, the Board of Forests of Riga Municipality initiated the preparation of a proposal for the designation of a new protection belt.The proposal was based on the development and application of a theoretical framework developed during the 1980s. The analysis of the recreational value of the forest (5 classes of attractiveness) was carried out based on categories of forest type, dominant tree species, dominant age, stand density, distance from urban areas and the presence of attractive objects. Information was derived from forest inventory databases, digital forest maps and topographic maps. Additional information was digitised and processed using ArcView GIS 3.2. Local foresters were asked about the recreation factors unique to different locations, such as the number of visitors and the main recreation activities. From a recreational point of view and taking into account legal restrictions and development plans for the Riga region, it was proposed to create three types of zones in the forest: a protection belt, visually sensitive areas and non-restricted areas.     

The influence of sampling scheme and interpolation method on the power to detect spatial effects of forest birds in Ontario (Canada)

Spatial ecology is becoming an increasingly important component of resource management, and the general monitoring of how human activities affect the distribution and abundance of wildlife. Yet most work on the reliability of sampling strategies is based on a non-spatial analysis of variance paradigm, and little work has been done assessing the power of alternative spatial methods for creating reliable maps of animal abundance. Such a map forms a critical response variable for multiple scale studies relating landscape structure to biotic function. The power to reconstruct patterns of distribution and abundance is influenced by sample placement strategy and density, the nature of spatial auto-correlation among points, and by the technique used to extrapolate points into an animal abundance map. Faced with uncertainty concerning the influence of these factors, we chose to first synthesize a model reference system of known properties and then evaluate the relative performance of alternative sampling and mapping procedures using it. We used published habitat associations of tree nesting boreal neo-tropical birds, a classified habitat map from the Manitou Lakes area of northwestern Ontario, and point count means and variances determined from field studies in boreal Canada to create 4 simulated models of avian abundance to function as reference maps. Four point sampling strategies were evaluated by 4 spatial mapping methods. We found mixed-cluster sampling to be an effective point sampling strategy, particularly when high habitat fragmentation was avoided by restricting samples to habitat patches >10 ha in size. We also found that of the 4 mapping methods, only stratified ordinary point kriging (OPK) was able to generate maps that reproduced an embedded landscape-scale spatial effect that reduced nesting bird abundance in areas of higher forest age-class fragmentation. Global OPK was effective only for detecting broader, regional-scale differences. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Does matrix resistance influence Red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris L. 1758) distribution in an urban landscape?

In determining isolation effects in fragmented populations, the landscape matrix is not often considered. Usually simple distance measures are used to quantify degree of isolation. We tested the effect of the matrix on the presence of red squirrels in 354 wooded patches in the Brussels Region, by comparing several isolation measures. These were 1) distance to the nearest source patch, 2) the Hanski-measure (a combination of distance to and size of all possible sources), 3) effective distances calculated from different least cost models using the ArcView grid extension ‘Cost Distance’ (a combination of distance and resistance of the landscape, with different resistances for different landscape types) and 4) some combinations of the Hanski-measure and the effective distances. Size and quality of the target patches were always included in the tests of the predictive power of different isolation measures on squirrel presence/absence. All variables examined (patch size, quality and isolation) significantly influenced squirrel presence. Models using the effective distances gave the best results. Models including the Hanski-measure improved significantly when Euclidean distance was replaced by effective distance, showing that parameterisation of matrix resistance added significant additional explanatory power when modelling squirrel presence. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Some determinants of the spatio-temporal fire cycle in a mediterranean landscape (Corsica,France)

Based on recent needs to accurately understand fire regimes and post-fire vegetation resilience at a supra-level for carbon cycle studies, this article focusses on the coupled history of fire and vegetation pattern for 40 years on a fire-prone area in central Corsica (France). This area has been submitted since the beginning of the 20^th century to land abandonment and the remaining land management has been largely controlled by frequent fires. Our objectives were to rebuild vegetation and fire maps in order to determine the factors which have driven the spatial and temporal distribution of fires on the area, what were the feed backs on the vegetation dynamics, and the long-term consequences of this inter-relationship. The results show a stable but high frequency of small fires, coupled with forest expansion over the study period. The results particularly illustrate the spatial distribution of fires according to topography and vegetation, leading to a strong contrast between areas never burnt and areas which have been burnt up to 7 times. Fires, when occuring, affect on average 9 to 12% of the S, SE and SW facing slopes (compared to only 2 to 5% for the N facing slopes), spread recurrently over ridge tops, affect all the vegetation types but reburn preferentially shrublands and grasslands. As these fire-proning parameters have also been shown to decrease the regeneration capacity of forests, this study highlights the needs in spatial studies (both in terms of fire spread and vegetation dynamic) to accurately apprehend vegetation dynamic and functionning in fire-prone areas.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

苜蓿冠层温度与农艺性状的相关分析

对从国内外引进的31个苜蓿品种分枝期—结英期的冠层温度及其农艺性状指标进行了相关分析和偏相关分析。结果表明，苜蓿冠层温度与分枝期和现蕾期的茎叶比、开花期的叶面积和产量间存在显著的偏相关关系，可作为产量高低的间接或直接指标；由于农艺性状指标间互相关的影响，冠层温度与农艺性状指标间的单相关系数可靠性差，且与偏相关系数有明显的差异；排除农艺性状指标间互相关影响后，偏相关系数可靠性大，可作为变量间关系密切程度的量化指标。     

长期培肥对土壤酶活性的影响

25a的有机肥长期定位试验地中土壤养分和有关酶活性研究表明:耕种和不同的培肥方式均能提高土壤养分的含量,明显地改善土壤的生物活性,其中对土壤脲酶和磷酸酶活性影响明显,多酚氧化酶显著性则较差。对土壤酶活性进行相关分析发现,土壤脲酶和碱性磷酸酶之间呈极显著正相关,且这两种酶与有关主要土壤肥力因子均呈显著或极显著正相关关系。揭示出了土壤脲酶和碱性磷酸酶活性可以用来作为评价土壤肥力的综合指标。     

The effects of agricultural fields and human settlements on the use of rivers by wildlife in the mid-Zambezi valley,Zimbabwe

After the eradication of the Tse-Tse fly in the Mid-Zambezi valley, human settlements and fields extended mainly along the main rivers. In order to investigate the consequences of this human development on wildlife diversity we monitored three rivers of the Mid-Zambezi valley in Zimbabwe: Angwa, Manyame and Kadzi. The rivers were divided in segments of 200 m which were checked for spoors in order to assess the number of species and the number of individuals that used the segments. Human settlements were also recorded. We used a GIS to define the spatial characteristics of the fields present along the rivers, and related them to the distribution and abundance of wild species spoors in the river beds and banks. Our results show that the number of species in one segment of the river decreased with the increasing size of the field area bordering the segment. For all the major ungulate species, the numbers of individuals recorded per segment decreased with increasing field area. A similar trend was observed for small and medium-sized carnivores, though they were in lower numbers when present. Our analyses thus confirm that the extension of human agriculture in wildlife areas has an impact on most wild species, but we also define some threshold value of field size above which there seem to be an acceleration of the decrease in wildlife density and diversity: 3.2 ha for medium and small herbivores and carnivores; only the elephant seem to tolerate larger field area with a threshold value of 32 ha.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Analysis of gene expression profile of multidrug resistant MCF/DOX cell line after benflumetol derivative LY980503 treatment

AIM:To investigate the effect of LY980503(a benflumetol derivative)on multidrug resistance of tumor cell line using DNA microarray.METHODS:Total RNA was extracted from multidrug resistant MCF/DOX cell line. cDNA microarray containing 320 cDNAs was used to detect the gene expression profile.RESULTS:9 down-regulated genes and 1 up-regulated gene were identified after multidrug resistant MCF/DOX cells were treated with LY980503.CONCLUSION:LY980503 can effectively reverse the resistance of MCF/DOX to DOX in vitro by adjusting the expression of multi-genes.     

中国风水侵蚀交错区分布特征分析

风水侵蚀交错带的研究 ,对景观、土地覆盖 /土地利用、全球变化等研究具有重要意义。论文以GIS技术为支撑 ,定量计算出我国风水侵蚀带。在分布特征上 ,主要分布我国北方地区 ,其中以西部沙漠 ,北部山脉沿线为重 ,这种分布与气候、地貌分界有明显联系。 49.6 %风水侵蚀复合带的降水量小于 2 0 0mm。风水侵蚀复合带的土地利用主要以草地为主 ,占 41.8% ,其次为耕地。两种类型的分布 ,草地以与其它土地利用类型交错分布为主 ;而耕地是有重心的分散分布。风水侵蚀复合带的总体侵蚀要强于全国水平。     

高效液相色谱法定量分析甲氨基阿维菌素苯甲酸盐

研究用HPLC定量分析甲维盐的方法。色谱条件如下:150mm×4.6mm不锈钢柱,用Hypersil,C185μm粒径,孔径300A;流动相:甲醇+水=80+20;流速1.0mL/min;紫外检测器波长254nm。本方法在1～8μg进样范围内和峰高呈线性。相关系数值(r)为0.9997。甲维盐分析方法的回收率为99.42%。