We examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on investment and productivity in agriculture in Akwapim, Ghana. We show that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights, and that as a consequence they invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output. The intensity of investments on di¤erent plots cultivate...

The highest annual precipitation in Ansai during the past 60 years was observed in 2013. Studying the effects of such extreme annual precipitation on soil erosion can deepen similar research and help predict environmental damage under future extreme rainfall. We selected the runoff plots (area: 4 m × 10 m) of three land-use types: cultivated land (C), wild grassland (W) and switchgrass (S). We ...

Please cite this article in press as: Grovenbur j.anbehav.2012.04.005 Despite their importance for understanding predatoreprey interactions, factors that affect predator evasion behaviours of offspring of large ungulates are poorly understood. Our objective was to characterize the influence of selection and availability of escape cover and maternal presence on predator evasion by white-tailed d...

Detailed analysis of continuous time-series data from regions undergoing rapid urbanization can accurately reveal spatial variations on short time scales. This study used the city of Changchun in Jilin Province, China, as a case study to analyze total and annual changes in area—especially decreases in rural settlement area—as well as regional differences in these changes and driving forces of r...

Plant-derived carbon compounds enter soils in a number of forms; two of the most abundant being leaf litter and rhizodeposition. Our knowledge concerning the predominant controls on the cycling of leaf litter far outweighs that for rhizodeposition even though the constituents of rhizodeposits includes a cocktail of low molecular weight organic compounds which represent a rapidly cycling source ...

Little is known about how cultivation legacies affect the outcome of rehabilitation seedings in the Great Basin, even though both frequently co-occur on the same lands. Similarly, there is little known about how these legacies affect native species reestablishment into these seedings. We examined these legacy effects by comparing areas historically cultivated and seeded to adjacent areas that w...

Energy plants are the main source of bioenergy which will play an increasingly important role in future energy supplies. With limited cultivated land resources in China, the development of energy plants may primarily rely on the marginal land. In this study, based on the land use data from 1990 to 2010(every 5 years is a period) and other auxiliary data, the distribution of marginal land suitab...

Spatial-temporal changes of land use and land cover in Luang Namtha Province in northern part of Laos was analyzed using Landsat TM (Thematic Mapper)/ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper) images from 1990 to 2010 since the opening of the Boten border adjacent to China. The results showed that: (1) “forest land—cultivated land—grassland” was the primary landscape structure. Woodland was the major land...

Extensive land and market reform in Vietnam has resulted in dramatic increases in rice output over the past thirty years. The land and market reforms in agriculture were pervasive, moving the system of rice production from commune-based public ownership and control to one with effective private property rights over land and farm assets, competitive domestic markets and individual decision makin...