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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Detecting Recent Crop Phenology Dynamics In Corn And Soybean Cropping Systems Of Kentucky, Yanjun Yang, Bo Tao, Liang Liang, Yawen Huang, Christopher J. Matocha, Chad D. Lee, Michael Sama, Bassil El Masri, Wei Ren Apr 2021

Detecting Recent Crop Phenology Dynamics In Corn And Soybean Cropping Systems Of Kentucky, Yanjun Yang, Bo Tao, Liang Liang, Yawen Huang, Christopher J. Matocha, Chad D. Lee, Michael Sama, Bassil El Masri, Wei Ren

Geography Faculty Publications

Accurate phenological information is essential for monitoring crop development, predicting crop yield, and enhancing resilience to cope with climate change. This study employed a curve-change-based dynamic threshold approach on NDVI (Normalized Differential Vegetation Index) time series to detect the planting and harvesting dates for corn and soybean in Kentucky, a typical climatic transition zone, from 2000 to 2018. We compared satellite-based estimates with ground observations and performed trend analyses of crop phenological stages over the study period to analyze their relationships with climate change and crop yields. Our results showed that corn and soybean planting dates were delayed by 0.01 …


Global Pattern And Change Of Cropland Soil Organic Carbon During 1901-2010: Roles Of Climate, Atmospheric Chemistry, Land Use And Management, Wei Ren, Kamaljit Banger, Bo Tao, Jia Yang, Yawen Huang, Hanqin Tian Mar 2020

Global Pattern And Change Of Cropland Soil Organic Carbon During 1901-2010: Roles Of Climate, Atmospheric Chemistry, Land Use And Management, Wei Ren, Kamaljit Banger, Bo Tao, Jia Yang, Yawen Huang, Hanqin Tian

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Soil organic carbon (SOC) in croplands is a key property of soil quality for ensuring food security and agricultural sustainability, and also plays a central role in the global carbon (C) budget. When managed sustainably, soils may play a critical role in mitigating climate change by sequestering C and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. However, the magnitude and spatio-temporal patterns of global cropland SOC are far from well constrained due to high land surface heterogeneity, complicated mechanisms, and multiple influencing factors. Here, we use a process-based agroecosystem model (DLEM-Ag) in combination with diverse spatially-explicit gridded environmental data to …


Geographic And Climatic Attributions Of Autumn Land Surface Phenology Spatial Patterns In The Temperate Deciduous Broadleaf Forest Of China, Weiguang Lang, Xiaoqiu Chen, Liang Liang, Shilong Ren, Siwei Qian Jun 2019

Geographic And Climatic Attributions Of Autumn Land Surface Phenology Spatial Patterns In The Temperate Deciduous Broadleaf Forest Of China, Weiguang Lang, Xiaoqiu Chen, Liang Liang, Shilong Ren, Siwei Qian

Geography Faculty Publications

Autumn vegetation phenology plays a critical role in identifying the end of the growing season and its response to climate change. Using the six vegetation indices retrieved from moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer data, we extracted an end date of the growing season (EOS) in the temperate deciduous broadleaf forest (TDBF) area of China. Then, we validated EOS with the ground-observed leaf fall date (LF) of dominant tree species at 27 sites and selected the best vegetation index. Moreover, we analyzed the spatial pattern of EOS based on the best vegetation index and its dependency on geo-location indicators and seasonal temperature/precipitation. …


Rediscovery Of The Endangered Carchi Andean Toad, Rhaebo Colomai (Hoogmoed, 1985), In Ecuador, With Comments On Its Conservation Status And Extinction Risk, Carolina Reyes-Puig, Gabriela B. Bittencourt-Silva, María Torres-Sánchez, Mark Wilkinson, Jeffrey W. Streicher, Simon T. Maddock, Ramachandran Kotharambath, Hendrik Müller, Francesca Nicole Angiolani Larrera, Diego Amieda-Reinoso, Santiago R. Ron, Diego Francisco Cisneros-Heredia May 2019

Rediscovery Of The Endangered Carchi Andean Toad, Rhaebo Colomai (Hoogmoed, 1985), In Ecuador, With Comments On Its Conservation Status And Extinction Risk, Carolina Reyes-Puig, Gabriela B. Bittencourt-Silva, María Torres-Sánchez, Mark Wilkinson, Jeffrey W. Streicher, Simon T. Maddock, Ramachandran Kotharambath, Hendrik Müller, Francesca Nicole Angiolani Larrera, Diego Amieda-Reinoso, Santiago R. Ron, Diego Francisco Cisneros-Heredia

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

Since 1984 there have been no records of Rhaebo colomai (Hoogmoed, 1985) within the territory of Ecuador. This species was known from 2 localities in the province of Carchi, northwestern Ecuador, and the department of Nariño, southwestern Colombia, which were reported in 1979 and 2015, respectively. We report the recent sightings of R. colomai at 3 new localities in Ecuador and discuss and evaluate this species’ extinction risk and conservation status.


Predicting Potential Fire Severity Using Vegetation, Topography And Surface Moisture Availability In A Eurasian Boreal Forest Landscape, Lei Fang, Jian Yang, Megan White, Zhihua Liu Mar 2018

Predicting Potential Fire Severity Using Vegetation, Topography And Surface Moisture Availability In A Eurasian Boreal Forest Landscape, Lei Fang, Jian Yang, Megan White, Zhihua Liu

Forestry and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Severity of wildfires is a critical component of the fire regime and plays an important role in determining forest ecosystem response to fire disturbance. Predicting spatial distribution of potential fire severity can be valuable in guiding fire and fuel management planning. Spatial controls on fire severity patterns have attracted growing interest, but few studies have attempted to predict potential fire severity in fire-prone Eurasian boreal forests. Furthermore, the influences of fire weather variation on spatial heterogeneity of fire severity remain poorly understood at fine scales. We assessed the relative importance and influence of pre-fire vegetation, topography, and surface moisture availability …


Language And Socioeconomics Predict Geographic Variation In Peer Review Outcomes At An Ecology Journal, C. Sean Burns, Charles W. Fox Nov 2017

Language And Socioeconomics Predict Geographic Variation In Peer Review Outcomes At An Ecology Journal, C. Sean Burns, Charles W. Fox

Information Science Faculty Publications

Papers submitted by scientists located in western nations generally fare better in the peer review process than do papers submitted by scientists from elsewhere. This paper examines geographic variation in peer review outcomes (whether a manuscript is sent for review, review scores obtained, and final decisions by editors) for 3529 submissions over a 4.5 year period at the journal Functional Ecology. In particular, we test whether geographic variation in language and socioeconomics are adequate to explain most or are all of this variation. There was no relationship between the geographic regions of handling editors and the decisions to send …


Mapping Temperate Vegetation Climate Adaptation Variability Using Normalized Land Surface Phenology, Liang Liang, Mark D. Schwartz, Xiaoyang Zhang Apr 2016

Mapping Temperate Vegetation Climate Adaptation Variability Using Normalized Land Surface Phenology, Liang Liang, Mark D. Schwartz, Xiaoyang Zhang

Geography Faculty Publications

Climate influences geographic differences of vegetation phenology through both contemporary and historical variability. The latter effect is embodied in vegetation heterogeneity underlain by spatially varied genotype and species compositions tied to climatic adaptation. Such long-term climatic effects are difficult to map and therefore often neglected in evaluating spatially explicit phenological responses to climate change. In this study we demonstrate a way to indirectly infer the portion of land surface phenology variation that is potentially contributed by underlying genotypic differences across space. The method undertaken normalized remotely sensed vegetation start-of-season (or greenup onset) with a cloned plants-based phenological model. As the …


Agbufferbuilder: A Filter Strip Design Tool For Gis, Surendran Neelakantan, Tom Mueller, Michael G. Dosskey, Todd Kellerman, Eduardo Abel Rienzi Jan 2012

Agbufferbuilder: A Filter Strip Design Tool For Gis, Surendran Neelakantan, Tom Mueller, Michael G. Dosskey, Todd Kellerman, Eduardo Abel Rienzi

Plant and Soil Sciences Research Tools

AgBufferBuilder is a GIS-based computer program for designing vegetative filter strips around agricultural fields that utilizes terrain analysis to account for spatially non-uniform runoff (Figure 1). The core model is derived from the process-based Vegetative Filter Strip Modeling System (VFSMOD-W). A detailed description of the core model and its development is provided in Dosskey et al. (2011). The GIS program runs with ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA).


Manipulation Of High Spatial Resolution Aircraft Remote Sensing Data For Use In Site-Specific Farming, Gabriel B. Senay, Andrew D. Ward, John G. Lyon, Norman R. Fausey, Sue E. Nokes Mar 1998

Manipulation Of High Spatial Resolution Aircraft Remote Sensing Data For Use In Site-Specific Farming, Gabriel B. Senay, Andrew D. Ward, John G. Lyon, Norman R. Fausey, Sue E. Nokes

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Three spatial data sets consisting of high spatial resolution (1 m) remote sensing images acquired in 12 spectral bands, an on-the-go yield map, and a Digital Elevation Model were co-registered and evaluated for spatial variability studies in a Geographic Information Systems environment. Separate on-the-go yield maps were developed for 3, 5, and 12 statistically significant mean yield classes. For each yield class, the corresponding mean spectral and elevation data were extracted. The relationship between mean spectral and yield data was strongly linear (r = 0.99). Also, a strong linear relationship between mean yield and elevation data (r = 0.92) was …


Regional Variation In Temperature Humidity Index For Poultry Housing, Richard S. Gates, Hanzhong Zhang, Donald G. Colliver, Douglas G. Overhults Jan 1995

Regional Variation In Temperature Humidity Index For Poultry Housing, Richard S. Gates, Hanzhong Zhang, Donald G. Colliver, Douglas G. Overhults

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

A building thermal model was used to compute hourly values of temperature humidity index (THI) for a broiler house with and without an evaporative misting system. Hourly summer time weather data for 238 U.S.A. locations covering 30 years were used to develop extreme occurrences of THI. Results were incorporated into a Geographical Information System (GIS) database to create isolines of THI and percentage of hours exceeding a heat stress threshold. Regional variations in misting as a suitable cooling technique are presented in terms of hours reduction in annual heat stress. The technique may be used for assisting in management decisions …