Geographers have been reticent on the role of the African diaspora in the contouring of Brazil’s biological and cultural landscapes. Whereas paradigm shifts have occurred in regards to environmental stability in the tropical realm and the pristine nature of pre-Columbian landscapes, these have not translated to a rigorous reassessment of the geographical position of Africans and their descendan...

We specify a system of equations that fully reflects the supply and demand sides of the market for agricultural open space at equilibrium. Although simple, the system is exceedingly flexible and allows for household and parcel heterogeneity. We derive an empirical model directly from the structural equations and contrast this using a simulated landscape with the econometric specification most o...

Mitigating the negative impacts of declining worldwide forest cover remains a significant socio-ecological challenge, due to the dominant role of human decision-making. Here we use a Markov chain model of land-use dynamics to examine the impact of governance on forest cover in a region. Each land parcel can be either forested or barren (deforested), and landowners decide whether to deforest the...

Landscape connectivity is integral to the persistence of metapopulations of wide ranging carnivores and other terrestrial species. The objectives of this research were to investigate the landscape characteristics essential to use of areas by lynx and bobcats in northern New England, map a habitat availability model for each species, and explore connectivity across areas of the region likely to ...

We developed and tested patch occupancy models for an endemic understory bird with limited dispersal ability, the Chucao Tapaculo (Scelorchilus rubecula), in two South American temperate rain forest landscapes that differed in levels and duration of forest loss. We assessed cover changes since 1961 in each landscape and surveyed patches for Chucao Tapaculo occupancy. We then developed incidence...

In the recent century,Tehran has been confronted with urban sprawl and rapid population growth that have caused urban landscape transformation, whichis different in various parts of Tehran based on specific economic, cultural and social situations. What is important in this essay is the human perception of their landscape in this process of transformation; therefore, the purpose is analyzing la...

We present novel algorithms and software addressing four core problems in computational structural biology, namely analyzing a conformational ensemble, comparing two conformational ensembles, analyzing a sampled energy landscape, and comparing two sampled energy landscapes. Using recent developments in computational topology, graph theory, and combinatorial optimization, we make two notable con...

Dispersal has long been recognized as a mechanism that shapes many observed ecological and evolutionary processes. Thus, understanding the factors that promote its evolution remains a major goal in evolutionary ecology. Landscape connectivity may mediate the trade-off between the forces in favour of dispersal propensity (e.g. kin-competition, local extinction probability) and those against it (...

Understanding the influence of landscape change on animal populations is critical to inform biodiversity conservation efforts. A particularly important goal is to understand how urban density affects the persistence of animal populations through time, and how these impacts can be mediated by habitat provision; but data on this question are limited for some taxa. Here, we use data from a citizen...