Changing Diets in China’s Cities: Empirical Fact or Urban Legend, November 2006

China’s economic reforms, which began in 1978, resulted in remarkable income growth, and urban Chinese consumers have responded by dramatically increasing their consumption of meat, other livestock products, and fruits and by decreasing consumption of grain-based foods. Economic prosperity, a growing openness to international markets, and domestic policy reforms have changed the food marketing environment for Chinese consumers and may have contributed to shifts in consumer preferences. The objective of this paper is to uncover evidence of structural change in food consumption among urban residents in China. Both parametric and nonparametric methods are used to test for structural change in aggregate household data from 1981 to 2004. The tests provided a reasonably clear picture of changing food consumption over the study period.

Seeing the Wood through the Trees: The Current State of Higher Systematics in the Strepsirhini.

Strepsirhines comprise 10 living or recently extinct families, ≥50% of extant primate families. Their phylogenetic relationships have been intensively studied, but common topologies have only recently emerged; e.g. all recent reconstructions link the Lepilemuridae and Cheirogaleidae. The position of the indriids, however, remains uncertain, and molecular studies have placed them as the sister to every clade except Daubentonia, the preferred sister group of morphologists. The node subtending Afro-Asian lorisids has been similarly elusive. We probed these phylogenetic inconsistencies using a test data set including 20 strepsirhine taxa and 2 outgroups represented by 3,543 mtDNA base pairs, and 43 selected morphological characters, subjecting the data to maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses, and reconstructing topology and node ages jointly from the molecular data using relaxed molecular clock analyses. Our permutations yielded compatible but not identical evolutionary histories, and currently popular techniques seem unable to deal adequately with morphological data. We investigated the influence of morphological characters on tree topologies, and examined the effect of taxon sampling in two experiments: (1) we removed the molecular data only for 5 endangered Malagasy taxa to simulate 'extinction leaving a fossil record'; (2) we removed both the sequence and morphological data for these taxa. Topologies were affected more by the inclusion of morphological data only, indicating that palaeontological studies that involve inserting a partial morphological data set into a combined data matrix of extant species should be interpreted with caution. The gap of approximately 10 million years between the daubentoniid divergence and those of the other Malagasy families deserves more study. The apparently contemporaneous divergence of African and non-daubentoniid Malagasy families 40-30 million years ago may be related to regional plume-induced uplift followed by a global period of cooling and drying. © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Senescent stem-galls in trees of Eremanthus erythropappus as a resource for arboreal ants

Senescent stem-galls in trees of Eremanthus erythropappus as a resource for arboreal ants. Members of the dipteran families Tephritidae and Cecidomyiidae are inducers of stem-galls in Eremanthus erythropappus (DC.) MacLeish (Asteraceae), a tree common in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. When senescent, these galls become available to other organisms, such as ants. The present study describes a community of ants having benefitted from this process of ecosystem-engineering. The colonies in question inhabit the senescent stem-galls of trees of E. erythropappus and were examined in view of answering the following questions: i) whether the presence of stem-galls had any bearing on the richness, composition, or size of the ant colonies therein; and ii) whether the ants displayed any preferences regarding the shape and/or size of the galls. The study was conducted in populations of E. erythropappus trees near the city of Ouro Preto, MG. A total of 227 galls were collected, 14% of which were occupied by ants, belonging to eight different species. Half of the species occupied galls of both morphotypes (fusiform and globular), although we observed a marked preference for larger, globular shapes. Overall, our results showed the galls to be an effective and abundant resource, helping to maintain the diversity of the ants in the canopy. We also observed the occurrence of outstations and polydomic nests, although an in-depth examination of the influence of galls on this type of structuring has not been investigated.

A diagram of public spaces within urban landscape as a strategy for sustainable urban planning in Chinese cities

Destruction of historical urban fabric in many Chinese cities and towns, without the possibility of its recovery as an urban asset, leads us to consider alternative strategies and criteria for formulating new urban projects, using creative urban planning instruments and strategies to provide a sense of place and identity to the urban landscape. The challenge is to set up an urban structure that constitutes a spatial reference system, a structure consisting of a set of urban landmarks that construct a system of related public spaces, endowed with collective significance and identity. Such a network could include a wide variety of urban typologies and natural elements. An important result of this strategy would be the recovery of the social and cultural values attached to the natural landscape in Chinese civilization. Hangzhou city will be analyzed as a case study

Within-plot subsampling of trees for assessment in progeny trials of Scots pine

Summary

Small Cities, Neoliberal Governance and Sustainable Development in the Global South : A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda

Development and environmental issues of small cities in developing countries have largely been overlooked although these settlements are of global demographic importance and often face a "triple challenge"; that is, they have limited financial and human resources to address growing environmental problems that are related to both development (e.g., pollution) and under-development (e.g., inadequate water supply). Neoliberal policy has arguably aggravated this challenge as public investments in infrastructure generally declined while the focus shifted to the metropolitan "economic growth machines". This paper develops a conceptual framework and agenda for the study of small cities in the global south, their environmental dynamics, governance and politics in the current neoliberal context. While small cities are governed in a neoliberal policy context, they are not central to neoliberalism, and their (environmental) governance therefore seems to differ from that of global cities. Furthermore, "actually existing" neoliberal governance of small cities is shaped by the interplay of regional and local politics and environmental situations. The approach of urban political ecology and the concept of rural-urban linkages are used to consider these socio-ecological processes. The conceptual framework and research agenda are illustrated in the case of India, where the agency of small cities in regard to environmental governance seems to remain limited despite formal political decentralization.

Prevalence of methadone injection in three Swiss cities.

OBJECTIVE: Intravenous methadone is associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality. A previous report from a methadone center in Fribourg, Switzerland, found a high prevalence (43%) of patients who injected oral methadone. We therefore wished to assess the prevalence of methadone injection among patients in oral methadone programs in 3 other Swiss cities--Lausanne, Geneva, and La Chaux-de-Fonds. METHOD: Subjects were randomly selected and interviewed by assistant psychologists who were not on the staff of the study centers. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. RESULTS: 164 patients participated in the study (n = 58 in Lausanne, 52 in Geneva, and 54 in La Chaux-de-Fonds). The prevalence of methadone injection was low (5%) and did not differ significantly between the cities. DISCUSSION: Less liberal policies cannot explain the lower prevalence of methadone injection in these three centers than in Fribourg. The high prevalence of methadone injection there is probably related to its separate methadone injection program: patients in oral methadone programs may be more likely to injection methadone when other patients authorized to do so. IN CONCLUSION: Although the 5% prevalence of methadone injection found in the 3 cities surveyed is low, it is not negligible. These results suggest that information on the risks associated with injection of methadone syrup should be provided to all methadone maintenance. This information is especially necessary when maintenance therapy is provided in the same center, or city as injectable methadone maintenance.

Variation in soil organic carbon and thickness of soil horizons within a boreal forest stand - effect of trees and implications for sampling

Summary

Rhizobia Isolated from Coal Mining Areas in the Nodulation and Growth of Leguminous Trees

ABSTRACT An alternative for recovery of areas degraded by coal mining is revegetation with rapidly growing leguminous trees, which often do not establish in low fertility soils. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of native rhizobia isolated from coal mining areas in the nodulation and growth of leguminous trees. We isolated 19 strains of rhizobia from a degraded soil near Criciúma, SC, Brazil, and evaluated the nodulation and growth-promoting capacity of the inoculated isolates for bracatinga (Mimosa scabrella), maricá (M. bimucronata) and angico-vermelho (Parapiptadenia rigida). Isolates UFSC-B2, B6, B8, B9, B11 and B16 were able to nodulate bracatinga, providing average increases of 165 % in shoot dry matter, with a significant contribution to N accumulation. Isolates UFSC-B5, B12, and M8 favored nodulation and growth of maricá, especially isolate UFSC-B12, which promoted increases of 370 % in N accumulation compared to treatment with N fertilizer. All strains were inefficient in promoting growth and N uptake by angico-vermelho. In conclusion, isolation and use of selected rhizobia for bracatinga and maricá plant inoculation can contribute to the growth and accumulation of N, with prospects for use in programs for revegetation of degraded soils in coal mining areas.

20 Native Trees to Plant, January 25, 2010

If you have ever flown in an airplane over Iowa, you would see that our woodlands are scattered along the rivers and streams and areas too steep to farm. You would also see a green carpet of trees within out cities and towns. Did you know the 90% of the over 2.7 million acres of forest in Iowa is owned by over 138,000 different private owners? Or that 30% of the land cover in a typical Iowa community if covered by trees? Trees are vital for the protection of our drinking water supply, critical for wildlife habitat, and help sustain employment of over 7,000 Iowans in the wood products industry. This booklet "20 Native trees to Plant" will help you gain a greater knowledge about Iowa's trees and forests. Learn about and enjoy Iowa's trees. Consider ways that you can improve our environment by planting and caring for Iowa's trees and forests.

Nutrient distribution in Picea likiangensis trees growing in a plantation in West Sichuan, Southwest China

Abstract