[1] Degradation of cattle pastures is a management concern that influences future land use in Amazonia. However, ‘‘degradation’’ is poorly defined and has different meanings for ranchers, ecologists, and policy makers. Here we analyze pasture degradation using objective scalars of photosynthetic vegetation (PV), nonphotosynthetic vegetation (NPV), and exposed soil (S) derived from Landsat image...

Policy analysis is complicated by the myriad of benefits and costs generated by the use of natural resources. This study develops three benefits that must be considered in the granting of a consumptive use permit for water filed by Adena Springs Ranch, east of Ocala, Florida. This ranch is hoping to expand into grass-fat beef; but to do so, it needs additional water for irrigation. Specifically...

Community structure and species’ abundances may be strongly correlated to patterns of forest cover, although such patterns are poorly known for tropical dry-forest birds, especially for those in Panamanian dry forests. Birds were distance-sampled during point counts in five dry-forest fragments in Panama. Distance from point count to forest edge and forest coverage at three spatial scales (500,...

We analyzed the synchronous relationship between forest cover and species distribution to explain the contraction in the distribution range of the brown eared-pheasant (Crossoptilon mantchuricum) in China. Historical resources can provide effective records for reconstructing long-term distribution dynamics. The brown eared-pheasant's historical distribution from 25 to 1947 CE, which included th...

Variations in the contaminant burden in feral and ranch mink, resulting from differences in their diet, may permit the identification of farm escapees. However, this is only possible in the case of contaminants that accumulate to significantly different levels in the two groups of animals. The main objective of this study was to identify chemical markers whose concentrations differ between fera...

Forest mapping is an important source of information for assessing woodland resources and a key issue for any National Forest Inventory (NFI). In the present study, a detailed wall-to-wall forest cover map was generated for all of Switzerland, which meets the requirement of the Swiss NFI forest definition. The workflow is highly automated and based on digital surface models from image-based poi...

Trapping and removing deer mice from ranch buildings resulted in an increased number of mice, including Sin Nombre virus antibody-positive mice, entering ranch buildings. Mouse removal without mouse proofing will not reduce and may even increase human exposure to Sin Nombre hantavirus.