People’s Avoidance of Neighboring Agricultural Urban Green Infrastructure: Evidence from a Choice Experiment

This study evaluates people’s preferences regarding the proximity of their residence to agricultural urban green infrastructure (UGI), such as agricultural land and satoyama, and discusses the availability of these types of land as UGI. UGI is vital for reducing the negative environmental impacts of urban areas, as these impacts are too large to ignore. In this study, we conducted an online survey and a choice experiment to investigate people’s perceptions regarding the proximity of their residence to agricultural UGI (AUGI). The respondents of the choice experiment were 802 inhabitants of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, which has rich agricultural resources. To examine explicitly the spatial autocorrelation of people’s preferences, in this study, we used the spatial econometrics method. The main empirical findings are that people prefer agricultural land far away from their residence—more than 1000 m, not within 1000 m—which reflects the not-in-my-backyard phenomenon. Meanwhile, people’s preferences regarding proximity to satoyama are complicated and their preferences are positively spatially autocorrelated. The results indicate that policymakers and urban planners should manage and provide AUGI far away from residential areas; otherwise, they must address people’s avoidance of neighboring AUGI.

Mandibular Structure, Gut Contents Analysis and Feeding Group of Orthopteran Species Collected from Different Habitats of Satoyama Area within Kanazawa City, Japan

A study was conducted on assemblies of various orthopteran species from distinct habitats in the Satoyama region, Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, and a total of 50 distinct orthopteran species were registered. These species were represented by 10 families and were belonged to 17 subfamilies and 27 tribes. Results based on stereo-microscopic examination of the mandibular morphology and the analysis of gut contents suggested seven proposed feeding groups for these collected orthopteran species. Among the examined subfamilies, family Tettigoniidae proved to be the most diverse in mandibular structure and four feeding groups were assigned. This was followed by family Acrididae, which showed three feeding groups. Other families contained only single feeding group. It was noted that only five species, from family Acrididae, were graminivorous with their mandibles characterized by comparatively very short incisors and relatively wide molar regions. The analysis of gut contents of these five species proved to contain more than 80% monocotyledonous plant species. Predation and scavenging as feeding habits were also recorded in some orthopteran species.

Haloarcula mannanilytica sp. nov., a galactomannan-degrading haloarchaeon isolated from commercial salt

A mannan-degrading halophilic archaeal strain, MD130-1T, was isolated from a commercial salt sample. Cells were motile, rod-shaped, and stained Gram-negative. Colonies were pink pigmented. Strain MD130-1T was able to grow at 1.5–4.6 M NaCl (optimum, 3.6 M) at pH 6.0–8.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) and at 25–50 °C (optimum, 40 °C). The DNA G+C content was 62.1 mol% (genome). The orthologous 16S rRNA gene sequence showed the highest similarity (99.4 %) to those of Haloarcula japonica JCM 7785T and Haloarcula hispanica JCM 8911T. The values of genome relatedness between strain MD130-1T and Haloarcula species were 84.33–85.96 % in ANIb and 30.4–32.9 % using GGDC formula 2. The polar lipids of strain MD130-1T were phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester and triglycosyl diether-2. Based on the results of phenotypic and phylogenetic analyses, the strain represents a new species of the genus Haloarcula , for which the name Haloarcula mannanilytica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MD130-1T (=JCM 33835T=KCTC 4287T) isolated from commercial salt made in Ishikawa prefecture, Japan.

Thundercloud Project: Exploring high-energy phenomena in thundercloud and lightning

We have designed, developed, and deployed a distributed sensor network to observe high-energy ionizing radiation, primarily gamma rays, from winter thunderclouds and lightning in coastal areas of Japan. Starting in 2015, we have installed a total of more than 15 ground-based detector systems in Ishikawa Prefecture and Niigata Prefecture, and accumulated 551 days of observation time in four winter seasons from late 2015 to early 2019. In this period, our system recorded 51 gamma-ray radiation events from thundercloud and lightning. Highlights of the science results obtained from this unprecedented amount of data include the discovery of photonuclear reaction in lightning which produces neutrons and positrons along with gamma rays, and deeper insights into the life cycle of a particle-acceleration and gamma-ray-emitting region in a thundercloud. The present paper reviews the objective, methodology, and results of our experiment, with an emphasis on its instrumentation.