scholarly journals Regularities in species’ niches reveal the world’s climate regions

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquín Calatayud ◽  
Magnus Neuman ◽  
Alexis Rojas ◽  
Anton Eriksson ◽  
Martin Rosvall

Climate regions form the basis of many ecological, evolutionary, and conservation studies. However, our understanding of climate regions is limited to how they shape vegetation: they do not account for the distribution of animals. Here, we develop a network-based framework to identify important climates worldwide based on regularities in realized niches of about 26,000 tetrapods. We show that high-energy climates, including deserts, tropical savannas, and steppes, are consistent across animal- and plant-derived classifications, indicating similar underlying climatic determinants. Conversely, temperate climates differ across all groups, suggesting that these climates allow for idiosyncratic adaptations. Finally, we show how the integration of niche classifications with geographical information enables the detection of climatic transition zones and the signal of geographic and historical processes. Our results identify the climates shaping the distribution of tetrapods and call for caution when using general climate classifications to study the ecology, evolution, or conservation of specific taxa.

2013 ◽  
Vol 756-759 ◽  
pp. 905-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ye Liang

Big Data is a new label given to a diverse field of data intensive informatics in which the data sets are so large that they become hard to work with effectively. The term has been mainly used in two contexts, firstly as a technological challenge when dealing with data-intensive domains such as geographical information image, high energy physics, astronomy or internet search, and secondly as a sociological problem when data about us is collected and mined by companies such as Facebook, Google, mobile phone companies, retail chains and governments. In this paper we look at this first issue from a new perspective, namely how can the user gain awareness of the personally relevant part big data that is publicly available in the portable equipment. With a lot of traditional applications such as geography information system (GIS) implanted on portable equipment, how to collect, store, process, analyze, and display big image data becomes a hot field. This paper puts forward a display control technique on portable equipment, which is based on measurement of users location. At the same time, we do serials of experiment on Android platform to validate them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-140
Author(s):  
Md. Nazmul Haque ◽  
Arpita Bakshi ◽  
Fathum Mobin

This paper focuses on delineation of ecological viability due to changes of household energy consumption behavior. Then the research also explored the factors (Environmental resources) behind growing ecological footprint. For having a lot of natural elements and high residential characteristics ward-4 of Khulna city was selected as study area. The research followed a three step approaches. At first, geographical and topographical data are analyzed in geo-spatial environment. Which helped to draw the Environmental Performance framework. Geographical Information system (GIS) helps to evaluate the current scenario and past scenario of the resource compatibility of some existing assets. The second phase is all about assessing the residents’ behavior towards energy consumption practice and the influencing factors behind this. The third part showed the environmental performance index (EPI) that include both the socio-economic problems and environmental circumstances using NSA method under the explanatory variables of environmental impact assessment (EIA). Essential natural assets especially water body and the vegetation has decreased at tremendous rate in recent time in Ward-4 with the enhancement of buildup area. This research is totally based on stakeholder perception towards energy consumption pattern and all the further assessment depend on this concept. To assess the behavioral changing factors, it seems that the correlation between income range and energy consumption is positive and linear. It represents that people want to switch high energy consumption appliances with growing wealth. Third phase assess environmental health (measure threat to human health) and ecological vitality (measures ecosystem service and natural resources) under environmental performance index. As the study is mostly involved local residents of study area so the method of neighborhood sustainability Assessment (NSA) is combined with EPI method for scoring the indicators. The approximate score of Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is around 53 percent demarcating the areas existing situation is in moderate rate and diverted from the standard value. This research draw attention to find out environment viability of ward-4 by measuring environmental stress to human health and ecosystem for providing practical guidance to government that aspire to move towards sustainable future.


2013 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Vessia ◽  
M. Parise ◽  
G. Tromba

Abstract. As concerns landslide prevention and mitigation policies at the urban scale, the ability of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to combine multi-layered information with high precision enables technicians and researchers to devote efforts in managing multiple hazards, such as seismically induced instability in urbanized areas. As a matter of fact, many villages in the Italian Apennines, placed near high-energy seismic sources, are characterized by active sliding that are seasonally remobilized by rainfall. GIS tools can be useful whether accurate Digital Elevation Models (DEM) are available and detailed mechanical and hydraulic characterization of superficial deposits over significant portion of the urban territory is undertaken. Moreover, the classic methods for estimating the seismic-induced permanent displacements within natural slopes are drawn from the generalization of Newmark's method. Such method can be applied to planar sliding mechanism that can be considered still valid wherever shallow landslides are generated by an earthquake. The failure mechanism depends on the mechanical properties of the superficial deposits. In this paper, the town of Castelfranci (Campania, southern Italy) has been studied. This small town, hosting two thousand inhabitants, suffers from the seasonal reactivation of landslides in clayey soil deposits due to rainfall. Furthermore, the site is seismically classified by means of the peak ground acceleration (PGA) equal to 0.246 g with respect to a 475 yr return period. Several studies on the evolution of slopes have been undertaken at Castelfranci and maps have been drawn at the urban scale not taking into any account the seismic hazard. This paper shows possible seismically induced hazard scenarios within the Castelfranci municipal territory aimed at microzonation of level 2, by estimating the slope permanent displacements comparable to those caused by the strongest historical seismic event that hit this area: the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. To this aim, geotechnical characterization of local soils collected over the last 25 yr by local technicians have been used to predict possible permanent displacements by means of Newmark's sliding block approach. Two simplified relationships relating peak ground acceleration and Arias intensity to permanent displacements have been used and compared. Although similar results are drawn, the two analyses point out the most hazardous sectors of the Castelfranci urban area.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adela Ramos-Escudero ◽  
Isabel C. Gil-Garcia ◽  
M. Socorro Garcia-Cascales ◽  
Angel Molina-Garcia

Nowadays, it can be assured that climate change represents an environmental danger for the planet with irreparable and unpredictable consequences in case both gas emissions as well as fossil fuel dependency does not go down. Population growth and its increasingly concentration in the cities turn these areas into a major consumer of energy, mainly due to the residential and service sector in order to meet the heating and cooling demand. In this scenario of taking advanced of renewable local resources shallow geothermal energy is presented as a renewable resource that can contribute to meet this demand with high energy and gas emissions savings. In this context, this work shows the art-of-state of the energy transition to a renewable energy society in Spain by means of the use of shallow geothermal energy. It proposes a procedure to transform the current fossil fuel consumption into renewable heating and cooling by the use of Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP). The methodology used is based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and is applied in Murcia Region, Spain. Positive results concerning gas savings emissions are expected converting shallow geothermal energy as an energy transition ally.


1996 ◽  
Vol 152 ◽  
pp. 113-120
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Ayres

Moderate-mass giants represent a touchstone for probing the mechanisms of magnetic activity among fast-rotating convective stars. Extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray observations of such stars detect generally hot coronae: the Hertzsprung-gap giants (F5–G2), in particular, have remarkable high-excitation peaks (107 K, or hotter) in their emission-measure distributions. While the high-temperature coronal plasmas are reminiscent of violent solar flares, the high-energy spectra of the Hertzsprung-gap giants appear to be quite steady over time; in contrast to other hot-corona objects whose optical light curves carry the stamps of starspots, and whose high-excitation emissions are sporadically—and dramatically—variable. The constancy of the Hertzsprung-gap stars is particularly puzzling in light of high-dispersion FUV spectroscopy that reveals supersonic flows in their 105 K subcoronal “transition zones.”


1984 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 599-602
Author(s):  
T.V. Johnson ◽  
G.E. Morfill ◽  
E. Grun

A number of lines of evidence suggest that the particles making up the E-ring are small, on the order of a few microns or less in size (Terrile and Tokunaga, 1980, BAAS; Pang et al., 1982 Saturn meeting; Tucson, AZ). This suggests that a variety of electromagnetic and plasma affects may be important in considering the history of such particles. We have shown (Morfill et al., 1982, J. Geophys. Res., in press) that plasma drags forces from the corotating plasma will rapidly evolve E-ring particle orbits to increasing distance from Saturn until a point is reached where radiation drag forces acting to decrease orbital radius balance this outward acceleration. This occurs at approximately Rhea's orbit, although the exact value is subject to many uncertainties. The time scale for plasma drag to move particles from Enceladus' orbit to the outer E-ring is ~104yr. A variety of effects also act to remove particles, primarily sputtering by both high energy charged particles (Cheng et al., 1982, J. Geophys. Res., in press) and corotating plasma (Morfill et al., 1982). The time scale for sputtering away one micron particles is also short, 102 - 10 yrs. Thus the detailed particle density profile in the E-ring is set by a competition between orbit evolution and particle removal. The high density region near Enceladus' orbit may result from the sputtering yeild of corotating ions being less than unity at this radius (e.g. Eviatar et al., 1982, Saturn meeting). In any case, an active source of E-ring material is required if the feature is not very ephemeral - Enceladus itself, with its geologically recent surface, appears still to be the best candidate for the ultimate source of E-ring material.


Author(s):  
J. B. Warren

Electron diffraction intensity profiles have been used extensively in studies of polycrystalline and amorphous thin films. In previous work, diffraction intensity profiles were quantitized either by mechanically scanning the photographic emulsion with a densitometer or by using deflection coils to scan the diffraction pattern over a stationary detector. Such methods tend to be slow, and the intensities must still be converted from analog to digital form for quantitative analysis. The Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven has designed and constructed a electron diffractometer, based on a silicon photodiode array, that overcomes these disadvantages. The instrument is compact (Fig. 1), can be used with any unmodified electron microscope, and acquires the data in a form immediately accessible by microcomputer.Major components include a RETICON 1024 element photodiode array for the de tector, an Analog Devices MAS-1202 analog digital converter and a Digital Equipment LSI 11/2 microcomputer. The photodiode array cannot detect high energy electrons without damage so an f/1.4 lens is used to focus the phosphor screen image of the diffraction pattern on to the photodiode array.


Author(s):  
J. M. Oblak ◽  
W. H. Rand

The energy of an a/2 <110> shear antiphase. boundary in the Ll2 expected to be at a minimum on {100} cube planes because here strue ture is there is no violation of nearest-neighbor order. The latter however does involve the disruption of second nearest neighbors. It has been suggested that cross slip of paired a/2 <110> dislocations from octahedral onto cube planes is an important dislocation trapping mechanism in Ni3Al; furthermore, slip traces consistent with cube slip are observed above 920°K.Due to the high energy of the {111} antiphase boundary (> 200 mJ/m2), paired a/2 <110> dislocations are tightly constricted on the octahedral plane and cannot be individually resolved.


Author(s):  
E.D. Wolf

Most microelectronics devices and circuits operate faster, consume less power, execute more functions and cost less per circuit function when the feature-sizes internal to the devices and circuits are made smaller. This is part of the stimulus for the Very High-Speed Integrated Circuits (VHSIC) program. There is also a need for smaller, more sensitive sensors in a wide range of disciplines that includes electrochemistry, neurophysiology and ultra-high pressure solid state research. There is often fundamental new science (and sometimes new technology) to be revealed (and used) when a basic parameter such as size is extended to new dimensions, as is evident at the two extremes of smallness and largeness, high energy particle physics and cosmology, respectively. However, there is also a very important intermediate domain of size that spans from the diameter of a small cluster of atoms up to near one micrometer which may also have just as profound effects on society as “big” physics.


Author(s):  
L.E. Murr

The production of void lattices in metals as a result of displacement damage associated with high energy and heavy ion bombardment is now well documented. More recently, Murr has shown that a void lattice can be developed in natural (colored) fluorites observed in the transmission electron microscope. These were the first observations of a void lattice in an irradiated nonmetal, and the first, direct observations of color-center aggregates. Clinard, et al. have also recently observed a void lattice (described as a high density of aligned "pores") in neutron irradiated Al2O3 and Y2O3. In this latter work, itwas pointed out that in order that a cavity be formed,a near-stoichiometric ratio of cation and anion vacancies must aggregate. It was reasoned that two other alternatives to explain the pores were cation metal colloids and highpressure anion gas bubbles.Evans has proposed that void lattices result from the presence of a pre-existing impurity lattice, and predicted that the formation of a void lattice should restrict swelling in irradiated materials because it represents a state of saturation.


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