Edge density affects demography of an exploited grassland bird

AbstractMass-flowering crop monocultures, like sunflower, cannot harbour a permanent pollinator community. Their pollination is best secured if both managed honey bees and wild pollinators are present in the agricultural landscape. Semi-natural habitats are known to be the main foraging and nesting areas of wild pollinators, thus benefiting their populations, whereas crops flowering simultaneously may competitively dilute pollinator densities. In our study we asked how landscape structure affects major pollinator groups’ visiting frequency on 36 focal sunflower fields, hypothesising that herbaceous semi-natural (hSNH) and sunflower patches in the landscape neighbourhood will have a scale-dependent effect. We found that an increasing area and/or dispersion of hSNH areas enhanced the visitation of all pollinator groups. These positive effects were scale-dependent and corresponded well with the foraging ranges of the observed bee pollinators. In contrast, an increasing edge density of neighbouring sunflower fields resulted in considerably lower visiting frequencies of wild bees. Our results clearly indicate that the pollination of sunflower is dependent on the composition and configuration of the agricultural landscape. We conclude that an optimization of the pollination can be achieved if sufficient amount of hSNH areas with good dispersion are provided and mass flowering crops do not over-dominate the agricultural landscape.

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Spatial-Temporal Analysis of the Forest Fragments Surrounding a Conservation Unit in the Southern Region of Brazil

Environmental Sciences Proceedings ◽

10.3390/environsciproc3010048 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 48

Author(s):

Bianca Fernandes ◽

Ligia Batista

Keyword(s):

Nearest Neighbor ◽

Temporal Analysis ◽

Management Plan ◽

Edge Density ◽

Forest Fragments ◽

Conservation Unit ◽

Border Effect ◽

Action Strategies ◽

Landsat Satellite ◽

High Degree

In recent years, anthropogenic actions have intensified forest fragmentation, causing several damages to the landscape’s natural components, propagating the loss of biodiversity. This study aims to present an analysis of the forest fragments in a conservation unit located at southern of Brazil. The evaluation was carried out for the years 1998, 2008, and 2018, by using landscape metrics and classification of remote sensing imagery of the Landsat satellite. The following metrics were analyzed: area and edge, shape, core area, and aggregation. The results indicated an increase of 16.88% in the total area of vegetation, and the percentage of fragments increased from 16.16% to 18.89%. The number of fragments decreased, resulting in an increase of the mean area in 5.4 ha. The percentage of vegetation under border effect changed from 40.2% to 37.1%. In 1998, the average nearest neighbor distance was 155.4 m, and in 2018, 149.7 m. However, this distance is still classified as a high degree of isolation, which hinders the movement of organisms and the dispersion of species. Thus, all the analyzed metrics indicated a decrease in the fragmentation, except for the edge density metric, in which its increase of 1.86 pointed to a lower degree of conservation during the analyzed period. A study of this nature is important as it provides subsidies for future researches and can contribute to action strategies to be adopted in the management plan of the area.

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Is Hay for the Birds? Investigating Landowner Willingness to Time Hay Harvests for Grassland Bird Conservation

Animals ◽

10.3390/ani11041030 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 1030

Author(s):

Matthew Gruntorad ◽

Katherine Graham ◽

Nico Arcilla ◽

Christopher Chizinski

Keyword(s):

Great Plains ◽

Critical Factor ◽

Information Support ◽

Conservation Strategies ◽

Bird Conservation ◽

Willingness To Participate ◽

Population Declines ◽

Grassland Bird ◽

The North ◽

Hunting Activity

Birds in agricultural environments have exhibited steep global population declines in recent decades, and effective conservation strategies targeting their populations are urgently needed. In grasslands used for hay production, breeding birds’ nest success improves substantially if hay harvests are delayed until after mid-July. However, few studies have investigated private hay producers’ willingness to alter their harvesting practices, which is a critical factor for bird conservation where most land is privately owned, such as in the North American Great Plains. We surveyed Nebraska hay producers to examine whether livestock production, wildlife knowledge, and hunting activity affects their willingness to alter haying practices for bird conservation. The majority (60%) of respondents expressed willingness to delay harvesting hay to allow birds time to nest successfully. Livestock producers and those more knowledgeable about wildlife were more willing to delay hay harvests, whereas active hunters were less willing to do so. Our findings suggest that a majority of private producers show a high potential for engaging in grassland bird conservation activities. Landowners’ willingness to participate in bird conservation programs and actions could be further encouraged through extension and education efforts connecting hay producers with information, support, and funding for bird conservation.

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Effects of geographic information system vector–raster–vector data conversion on landscape indices

Canadian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1139/x26-158 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 26 (8) ◽

pp. 1416-1425 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Pete Bettinger ◽

Gay A. Bradshaw ◽

George W. Weaver

Keyword(s):

Information System ◽

Fractal Dimension ◽

Geographic Information System ◽

Cell Size ◽

Grid Cell ◽

Conversion Process ◽

Data Conversion ◽

Edge Density ◽

Gis Data ◽

Landscape Level

The effects of geographic information system (GIS) data conversion on several polygon-and landscape-level indices were evaluated by using a GIS vegetation coverage from eastern Oregon, U.S.A. A vector–raster–vector conversion process was used to examine changes in GIS data. This process is widely used for data input (digital scanning of vector maps) and somewhat less widely used for data conversion (output of GIS data to specific formats). Most measures were sensitive to the grid cell size used in the conversion process. At the polygon level, using the conversion process with grid cell sizes of 3.05, 6.10, and 10 m produced relatively small changes to the original polygons in terms of ln(polygon area), ln(polygon perimeter), and 1/(fractal dimension). When grid cell size increased to 20 and 30 m, however, polygons were significantly different (p < 0.05) according to these polygon-level indices. At the landscape level, the number of polygons, polygon size coefficient of variation (CV), and edge density increased, while mean polygon size and an interspersion and juxtaposition index (IJI) decreased. The youngest and oldest age-class polygons followed the trends of overall landscape only in terms of number of polygons, mean polygon size, CV, and IJI. One major side effect of the conversion process was that many small polygons were produced in and around narrow areas of the original polygons. An alleviation process (referred to as the dissolving process) was used to dissolve the boundaries between similarly attributed polygons. When we used the dissolving process, the rate of change for landscape-level indices slowed; although the number of polygons and CV still increased with larger grid cell sizes, the increase was less than when the dissolving process was not used. Mean polygon size, edge density, and fractal dimension decreased after use of the dissolving process. Trends for the youngest and oldest age-class polygons were similar to those for the total landscape, except that IJI was greater for these age-classes than for the total landscape.

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Thermal transport catastrophe and the tokamak edge density limit

Physics of Plasmas ◽

10.1063/1.2206168 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 062503 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

D. A. D’Ippolito ◽

J. R. Myra

Keyword(s):

Thermal Transport ◽

Edge Density ◽

Density Limit ◽

Tokamak Edge

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Assessment of Tuscany Landscape Structure According to the Regional Landscape Plan Partition

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13105424 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (10) ◽

pp. 5424

Author(s):

Martina Venturi ◽

Francesco Piras ◽

Federica Corrieri ◽

Beatrice Fiore ◽

Antonio Santoro ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Landscape Structure ◽

Agricultural Landscapes ◽

Edge Density ◽

Regional Government ◽

Land Uses ◽

Landscape Mosaic ◽

Landscape Complexity ◽

Economic Role ◽

Patch Density ◽

Landscape Units

The landscape is considered a strategic asset by the Tuscan regional government, also for its economic role, meaning that a specific Landscape Plan has been developed, dividing the region into 20 Landscape Units and representing the main planning instrument at the regional level. Following the aims of the Landscape Plan and the guidelines of the European Landscape Convention, it is necessary to develop an adequate assessment of the landscape, evaluating the main typologies and their characteristics. The aim of this research is to carry out an assessment of the landscape diversity in Tuscany based on 20 study areas, analyzing land uses and landscape mosaic structures through the application of landscape metrics: number of land uses, mean patch size (MPS), Hill’s diversity number, edge density (ED), patch density (PD), land use diversity (LUD). The results highlight a correlation between the landscape typologies (forest, agricultural, mixed, periurban) and the complexity of the landscape structure, especially in relation to MPS and PD, while the combination of PD and LUD calculated on the basis of a hexagonal grid allows obtaining landscape complexity maps. Despite the phenomena of reforestation and urban sprawl of recent decades, Tuscany still preserves different landscape typologies characterized by a good level of complexity. This is particularly evident in mixed landscapes, while agricultural landscapes have a larger variability because of different historical land organization forms. The methodology applied in this study provided a large amount of data about land uses and the landscape mosaic structure and complexity and proved to be effective in assessing the landscape structure and in creating a database that can represent a baseline for future monitoring.

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Living on the edge: density and activity patterns of the ocelot, Leopardus pardalis, in the austral limit of the Atlantic Forest

Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment ◽

10.1080/01650521.2021.2008146 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Gisele Jardim Bolze ◽

Flávia Pereira Tirelli ◽

Diego Queirolo ◽

Maria João Ramos Pereira

Keyword(s):

Atlantic Forest ◽

Activity Patterns ◽

Edge Density ◽

Leopardus Pardalis

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Innovative approach to evaluate the wearing of nano TiO2 doped alumina ceramics in the light of image modelling

Journal of Tribology ◽

10.1115/1.4051904 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

Partha Haldar ◽

Alok Mukherjee ◽

Tapas Kumar Bhattacharya ◽

Nipu Modak

Keyword(s):

Wear Rate ◽

Wear Track ◽

Specific Wear Rate ◽

Edge Density ◽

Alumina Ceramics ◽

Nano Tio2 ◽

Image Histogram ◽

Wide Range ◽

Density Index ◽

Sobel Edge Detection

Abstract The present research is emphasized on the microscopic observation of post wear surface of nano TiO2 doped alumina ceramics to accesses wearing by promising image processing algorithms viz. entropy analysis, Sobel edge detection technique and entropy filtered image histogram analysis in relation to the extent of doping. The experimental results of specific wear rate showed an indicator with the extent of micro fracturing of grains, ploughing of materials and debris formation on the wear track after a long wear cycles in terms of entropy level, edge density index, entropy filtered image and the nature of histogram at different doping level. The lowest value of entropy level and edge density index is shown at the level of 1 wt.% TiO2 doped alumina ceramics due to the presence of low number of granularity and microfracture grains on the wear track causes the lowering of specific wear rate. The histogram of entropy filtered image for 1 wt.% doping is more uniformly distributed with the highest frequency and lowest skewness factor over a wide range of intensity values for 1 wt.% doping.

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Analytical cutting force modelling of micro-slot grinding considering tool-workpiece interactions on both primary and secondary tool surfaces

Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering ◽

10.1115/1.4051235 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-43

Author(s):

Ashwani Pratap ◽

Karali Patra

Keyword(s):

Cutting Force ◽

Cutting Forces ◽

Orthogonal Cutting ◽

Surface Interactions ◽

Surface Interaction ◽

Edge Density ◽

Force Model ◽

Height Distribution ◽

Force Modeling ◽

Tool Surface

Abstract This work presents an analytical cutting force modeling for micro-slot grinding. Contribution of the work lies in the consideration of both primary and secondary tool surface interactions with the work surface as compared to the previous works where only primary tool surface interaction was considered during cutting force modeling. Tool secondary surface interaction with workpiece is divided into two parts: cutting/ ploughing by abrasive grits present in exterior margin of the secondary tool surface and sliding/adhesion by abrasive grits in the inner margins of the secondary tool surface. Orthogonal cutting force model and indentation based fracture model is considered for cutting by both the abrasives of primary tool surface and the abrasives of exterior margin on the secondary surface. Asperity level sliding and adhesion model is adopted to solve the interaction between the workpiece and the interior margin abrasives of secondary tool surface. Experimental measurement of polycrystalline diamond tool surface topography is carried out and surface data is processed with image processing tools to determine the tool surface statistics viz., cutting edge density, grit height distribution and abrasive grit geometrical measures. Micro-slot grinding experiments are carried out on BK7 glass at varying feed rate and axial depths of cut to validate the simulated cutting forces. Simulated cutting forces considering both primary and secondary tool surface interactions are found to be much closer to the experimental cutting forces as compared to the simulated cutting forces considering only primary tool surface interaction.

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