Neolithic Rice Cultivation and Consequent Landscape Changes at the Baodun Site, Southwestern China

Identifying when agricultural expansion has occurred and how it altered the landscape is critical for understanding human social survival strategies as well as current ecological diversity. In the present study, phytolith records of three profiles from the Baodun site area were dated to the period from 7,500 to 2,500 aBP by optically stimulated luminescence and 14C dating, providing the first evidence that the Asian cultivated rice (Oryza sativa) progenitor was distributed in the Chengdu Plain as early as 7,500 aBP. The percentage of rice bulliform with ≥9 scales and the concentration of rice phytoliths sharply increased by approximately 4,200 aBP, suggesting that rice cultivation occupied a dominant position in survival strategy no later than approximately 4,200 aBP, which might be driven by climate deterioration in eastern China. The results further showed that the proportion of Bambusoideae phytoliths increased synchronously with the increase in the proportion of rice phytoliths, suggesting that the vegetation structure near the site was changed intentionally as a consequence of increasing rice agricultural activity since 4,200 aBP. The present study contributes to a deeper understanding of the distribution of wild rice and rice farming throughout the Baodun culture in the Chengdu Plain, and it also provides a glimpse of how humans intentionally changed the vegetation landscape on a local scale.

Effects of Visual Attributes of Flower Borders in Urban Vegetation Landscapes on Aesthetic Preference and Emotional Perception

The vegetation landscape in urban green space has been shown to provide great psychological benefits to people. Flower border is a well-designed small-scale vegetation landscape with the advantages of color and vegetation richness. This study focused on the effects of the visual attributes of flower borders on the aesthetic preference and emotional perception. The face recognition measurement method was used to obtain the emotional perception and the questionnaire survey method was used to measure the aesthetic preference. The results indicated the following: (1) regarding the ‘color features’ factor, high proportions of cool color and green vegetation significantly increased aesthetic preference and emotional valence, while the proportion of warm color had a negative effect on valence; (2) the ‘visual attractiveness’ (color brightness, and visual richness) and ‘color configuration’ (number of plant patches and number of color hues) factor was positively associated with aesthetic preference and emotional valence; (3) aesthetic preference was significantly related to emotional valence; (4) males expressed higher aesthetic preference and valence for flower border images than females. The results are expected to improve the aesthetic quality of flower borders and to promote public emotional health through the effective design of urban vegetation landscapes.

Landscape Dynamics Improved Recreation Service of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China

Spatio-temporal variations of recreation service not only could help to understand the impact of cultural services on human well-being but also provides theoretical and technical support for regional landscape management. However, previous studies have avoided deeply quantifying and analyzing it or have simply focused on assessing recreational service at a single period in time. In this study, we used the InVEST model to evaluate the spatio-temporal variations of recreation service in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area and demonstrated the impact of recreation service on landscape dynamics. The results demonstrated that recreation service increased significantly and presented a significant spatial heterogeneity. Although afforestation and urban expansion both could significantly increase recreation service, the recreation service proxy of the non-vegetation landscape is far higher than that of the vegetation landscape. This finding indicated that human landscape is more attractive to tourists than the natural landscape, so we recommend to strengthen the infrastructure construction for enhancing the accessibility of natural landscapes. Moreover, we propose other constructive suggestions and landscape-design solutions for promoting recreation service. This study shifted the static environmental health assessment to the analysis of recreation service dynamics, bridging the regulatory mechanisms of ecosystem services involved in cultural services.

Planting Design Approach in Sustainable Urban Planning

The increased pressures associated with climate change and urbanization processes adversely affect the quality of life of the cities and damage the sustainability of the cities. Sustainability of a city depends on the social, economic and ecological flexible uses that these pressures can tolerate. The examination of these flexible uses within the city brings along the sustainability of the landscape. Landscape serving flexible uses for urban sustainability; All the unconscious elements that make up that landscape, especially the vegetation landscape element, should support the concept of sustainability. Within the scope of the study, it was aimed to determine sustainable design approaches in the fields of planting and to create an evaluation scale accordingly by examining the sustainable planting design approaches in urban scale. An answer was sought to the question of how sustainable the planting activities of Trabzon province are. In the study, 40 studies defined as sustainable landscape areas were examined and 27 sub-parameters were developed under 4 main titles within the framework of these studies. The parameters are examined in the regions represented by the city components that make up the city and it is tried to determine what is necessary for the sustainability of the city

Plant Landscape and Models of French Atlantic Estuarine Systems. Extended Summary of the Doctoral Thesis

The present study proposes a theoretical common model of environmental gradients and functioning of vegetation and Plant Landscape of the French Atlantic estuarine systems. This model offers a basis to improve classification and ecological studies of estuarine systems, and to helps the monitoring and assessment of land uses, land forms transformation and human impacts, thanks to the develop of a spatio-temporal predictive model based on actual and potential vegetation following a dynamico-catenal approach. In eight selected estuaries, fieldworks was undertook for a total of 98,315 ha highlighting two vegetation series and four geopermaseries, corresponding to 131 plant associations, 60 alliances, 43 orders, and 28 classes. The vegetation of three representative estuaries was mapped, for a total of 74,433 ha. A synthetic scheme of estuary vegetation landscape is proposed, integrating geographical and ecological gradients as well as geomorphologic forms.

Bryo-Activities: A Review on How Bryophytes Are Contributing to the Arsenal of Natural Bioactive Compounds against Fungi

Usually regarded as less evolved than their more recently diverged vascular sisters, which currently dominate vegetation landscape, bryophytes seem having nothing to envy to the defensive arsenal of other plants, since they had acquired a suite of chemical traits that allowed them to adapt and persist on land. In fact, these closest modern relatives of the ancestors to the earliest terrestrial plants proved to be marvelous chemists, as they traditionally were a popular remedy among tribal people all over the world, that exploit their pharmacological properties to cure the most different diseases. The phytochemistry of bryophytes exhibits a stunning assortment of biologically active compounds such as lipids, proteins, steroids, organic acids, alcohols, aliphatic and aromatic compounds, polyphenols, terpenoids, acetogenins and phenylquinones, thus it is not surprising that substances obtained from various species belonging to such ancestral plants are widely employed as antitumor, antipyretic, insecticidal and antimicrobial. This review explores in particular the antifungal potential of the three Bryophyta divisions—mosses (Musci), hornworts (Anthocerotae) and liverworts (Hepaticae)—to be used as a sources of interesting bioactive constituents for both pharmaceutical and agricultural areas, providing an updated overview of the latest relevant insights.

VEGETATION COMPOSITION ON ECOLOGICAL FUNCTION IN MATARAM MERAH PARK, JAKARTA

The existence of the city park is important for Jakarta as a metropolitan city with the current activity level of motor vehicles and air pollution greatly affects the quality of the city environment. The selection of vegetation in Mataram Merah park considered functional aspects and aesthetic values . The objective of this study were to determine the composition and type of vegetation landscape in Mataram Merah park and to determine the function of each type of landscape vegetation in Mataram Merah park. This study used a descriptive qualitative method with several stages, which is survey; identification of the name and type of vegetation; size identification; identification of the type of vegetation making up the composition (name of type and size that makes up the vegetation structure). The results showed that Mataram Merah park was generally planted with vegetation that functioned aesthetically rather than functionally. The function of landscape plants in Mataram Merah park were as aesthetics is 96.55%, as controlling view as much as 13.80%, vegetation function as physical barrier as much as 62.07%, plants as controlling erosion 51.72%, function of plants as controlling climate 13.79% and vegetation function for wildlife as much as 17.24%.

Soil use and occupation in Caracol Settlement: a multitemporal assessment using remote sensing and geoprocessing techniques

This study focused on the application of remote sensing and geoprocessing techniques to quantify the agroecological use of Caracol settlement area in order to quantify the vegetated areas, as well as the use and occupation of the soil in the years 2000, 2010 and 2020, in the months of May of each year. To achieve the objectives, computational tools (Quantum GIS software) were used, as well as data from Landsat 5 and 8 satellites, bands 3 and 4, 4 and 5 respectively. Vector data from the database of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), a Digital Elevation Model (DEM), from the United States Geological Survey (USGS/NASA) for evaluation of the watersheds were also used. For vegetation analysis, as well as temporal evolution, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used, with this it was possible to evaluate by means of thematic maps and tables containing the quantification and classification of vegetation and soil cover. It was evident in the present study that there were significant changes in the vegetation landscape over two decades, through anthropic activity by settled families, that were responsible for such changes in the use and soil cover of Caracol settlement.