Search results for "MetS"
showing 10 items of 511 documents
Contrasting Effects of Chronic Anthropogenic Disturbance on Activity and Species Richness of Insectivorous Bats in Neotropical Dry Forest
2022
For prioritizing conservation actions, it is vital to understand how ecologically diverse species respond to environmental change caused by human activity. This is particularly necessary considering that chronic human disturbance is a threat to biodiversity worldwide. Depending on how species tolerate and adapt to such disturbance, ecological integrity and ecosystem services will be more or less affected. Bats are a species-rich and functionally diverse group, with important roles in ecosystems, and are therefore recognized as a good model group for assessing the impact of environmental change. Their populations have decreased in several regions, especially in the tropics, and are threatene…
Hyperspectral UAV-Imagery and photogrammetric canopy height model in estimating forest stand variables
2017
Remote sensing using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) -borne sensors is currently a highly interesting approach for the estimation of forest characteristics. 3D remote sensing data from airborne laser scanning or digital stereo photogrammetry enable highly accurate estimation of forest variables related to the volume of growing stock and dimension of the trees, whereas recognition of tree species dominance and proportion of different tree species has been a major complication in remote sensing-based estimation of stand variables. In this study the use of UAV-borne hyperspectral imagery was examined in combination with a high-resolution photogrammetric canopy height model in estimating forest v…
A global Canopy Water Content product from AVHRR/Metop
2020
Abstract Spatially and temporally explicit canopy water content (CWC) data are important for monitoring vegetation status, and constitute essential information for studying ecosystem-climate interactions. Despite many efforts there is currently no operational CWC product available to users. In the context of the Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF), we have developed an algorithm to produce a global dataset of CWC based on data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor on board Meteorological–Operational (MetOp) satellites forming the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). CWC reflects the water conditions at the leaf level and information related …
Chlorophyll Concentration Retrieval by Training Convolutional Neural Network for Stochastic Model of Leaf Optical Properties (SLOP) Inversion
2020
Miniaturized hyperspectral imaging techniques have developed rapidly in recent years and have become widely available for different applications. Combining calibrated hyperspectral imagery with inverse physically based reflectance models is an interesting approach for estimating chlorophyll concentrations that are good indicators of vegetation health. The objective of this study was to develop a novel approach for retrieving chlorophyll a and b values from remotely sensed data by inverting the stochastic model of leaf optical properties using a one-dimensional convolutional neural network. The inversion results and retrieved values are validated in two ways: A classical machine learning val…
Design of experiment approach applied to reducing and oxidizing tolerance of anode supported solid oxide fuel cell. Part I: Microstructure optimizati…
2011
The main drawback of Ni/YSZ anode supports for solid oxide fuel cell application is their low tolerance to reducing and oxidizing (RedOx) atmosphere changes, owing to the Ni/NiO volume variation. This work describes a structured approach based on design of experiments for optimizing the microstructure for RedOx stability enhancement. A full factorial hypercube design and the response surface methodology are applied with the variables and their variation range defined as: (1) NiO proportion (40-60 wt% of the ceramic powders), (2) pore-former proportion (0-30 wt% corresponding to 0-64 vol.%), (3) NiO particle size (0.5-8 mu m) and (4) 8YSZ particle size (0.6-9 mu m).
Community Turnover of Wood-Inhabiting Fungi across Hierarchical Spatial Scales
2014
For efficient use of conservation resources it is important to determine how species diversity changes across spatial scales. In many poorly known species groups little is known about at which spatial scales the conservation efforts should be focused. Here we examined how the community turnover of wood-inhabiting fungi is realised at three hierarchical levels, and how much of community variation is explained by variation in resource composition and spatial proximity. The hierarchical study design consisted of management type (fixed factor), forest site (random factor, nested within management type) and study plots (randomly placed plots within each study site). To examine how species richne…
Applying a framework for landscape planning under climate change for the conservation of biodiversity in the Finnish boreal forest
2015
Conservation strategies are often established without consideration of the impact of climate change. However, this impact is expected to threaten species and ecosystem persistence and to have dramatic effects towards the end of the 21st century. Landscape suitability for species under climate change is determined by several interacting factors including dispersal and human land use. Designing effective conservation strategies at regional scales to improve landscape suitability requires measuring the vulnerabilities of specific regions to climate change and determining their conservation capacities. Although methods for defining vulnerability categories are available, methods for doing this …
Semi-natural habitats in the European boreal region: Caught in the socio-ecological extinction vortex?
2022
AbstractWe propose to consider semi-natural habitats—hotspots for biodiversity—being caught in a socio-ecological extinction vortex, similar to the phenomenon described for species threatened with extinction. These habitats are essentially socioecological systems, in which socioeconomic drivers are interlinked with ecological processes. We identify four highly interlinked and mutually reinforcing socio-economic processes, pertaining to the importance of semi-natural habitats for (i) agricultural production, (ii) policy, research and development; (iii) vocational education in the fields of agricultural sciences and (iv) public’s experiences with semi-natural habitats. Evidence from six count…
Using change trajectories to study the impacts of multi-annual habitat loss on fledgling production in an old forest specialist bird
2017
The loss and subdivision of habitat into smaller and more spatially isolated units due to human actions has been shown to adversely affect species worldwide. We examined how changes in old forest cover during eight years were associated with the cumulative number of fledged offspring at the end of study period in Eurasian treecreepers (Certhia familiaris) in Central Finland. We were specifically interested in whether the initial level of old forest cover moderated this relation. We applied a flexible and powerful approach, latent growth curve modelling in a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework, to create trajectories describing changes in old forest cover through time, and studied h…
No evidence of systematic pre-emptive loggings after notifying landowners of their lands’ conservation potential
2020
Landowners can intentionally impair biodiversity values occurring on their land to pre-empt biodiversity protection. This often leads to significant negative effects on biodiversity. We studied whether landowners in Finland engaged in pre-emptive loggings after they were notified that their wooded mires are candidate sites for a mire protection program. After the notification, harvesting rates of the candidate wooded mires were significantly lower compared to harvesting rates of similar but non-candidate wooded mires. Annual and monthly harvesting rates indicated that notifying landowners of the conservation potential did not launch systematic pre-emptive logging behavior. Nevertheless, par…