Dry forests represent a large percentage of tropical forests and are vulnerable to both anthropogenic and natural disturbances, yet important aspects of their sensitivity to disruption remain poorly understood. It is particularly unclear how changes in land-use or tropical storm patterns may affect the resiliency of phosphorus (P)-limited neotropical forests. In these systems, vegetation is sus...

In May 1999 the SMOS Earth Explorer Opportunity mission was selected by ESA to provide global soil moisture and sea salinity maps using the MIRAS L-band aperture synthesis interferometric radiometer. At this frequency there is a high dynamic range of the soil moisture signature and surface roughness effects are small, as well as vegetation effects. However, they cannot be neglected at large obs...

16 In this work we present measurements of vegetation cover over parabolic dunes with 17 different degree of activation along the north-eastern Brazilian coast. We extend 18 the local values of the vegetation cover density to the whole dune by correlating 19 measurements with the relative brightness index C of high resolution QuickBird 20 panchromatic satellite image of the dune field. Next, we...

Recent efforts to project vegetation responses to climatic warming have emphasized the tight linkages between climate and vegetation distribution. Here we provide several examples indicating that the direct effects of climatic warming on boreal vegetation can be qualitatively different than the indirect effects mediated by climatic responses of herbivores. These herbivore-mediated vegetation re...

The Netherlands is facing a Q fever epidemic in which dairy goats are implicated. People living close to an affected farm have an increased risk. However, no human cases were reported around a number of farms with serious Q fever problems. To assess the role of local environmental conditions which may add to the transmission or risk of Q fever, we gathered datasets on vegetation, land use, soil...

We developed new vegetation indices utilizing terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) to quantify the three-dimensional spatial configuration of plant communities. These indices leverage the novelty of TLS data and rely on the spatially biased arrangement of a TLS point cloud. We calculated these indices from TLS data acquired within an existing long term manipulation of forest structure in Central Or...

BACKGROUND The United Nation's Program for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) aims to reduce the 20% contribution to global emissions of greenhouse gases from the forest sector, offering a financial value of the carbon stored in forests as an incentive for local communities. The pre-requisite for the setup of a participatory REDD + Program is the monitoring, re...

This study evaluated the daptomycin activity against two methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus epidermidis (MRSE) clinical isolates with different vancomycin susceptibilities: MRSE-375, with a vancomycin MIC of 2 microg/ml, and NRS6, a glycopeptide-intermediate S. epidermidis (GISE) strain with a vancomycin MIC of 8 microg/ml. The in vivo activity of daptomycin at two different doses (standard d...

Long-term studies can broaden our ecological understanding and are particularly important when examining contingent effects that involve changes to dominance by long-lived species. Such a change occurred during the last century in Southwestern (USA) ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests. We used five livestock grazing exclosures established in 1912 to quantify vegetation structure in 1941 an...

Increasing trends of urbanization lead to vegetation degradation in big cities and affect the urban thermal environment. This study investigated (1) the cooling effect of urban green space spatial patterns on Land Surface Temperature (LST); (2) how the surrounding environment influences the green space cool islands (GCI), and vice versa. The study was conducted in two Asian capitals: Beijing, C...