Discrimination of species composition types of a grazed pasture landscape using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data

Species composition is one of the important measurable indices of alpha diversity and hence aligns with the measurable Essential Biodiversity Variables meant to fulfil the Aichi Biodiversity Targets by 2020. Graziers also seek for pasture fields with varied species composition for their livestock, but visual determination of the species composition is not practicable for graziers with large fields. Consequently, this study demonstrated the capability of Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (S1) and Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (S2) to discriminate pasture fields with single-species composition, two-species composition and multi-species composition for a pastoral landscape in Australia. The study used K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers to evaluate the strengths of S1-alone and S2-alone features and the combination of these S1 and S2 features to discriminate the composition types. For the S1 experiment, KNN which was the reference classifier achieved an overall accuracy of 0.85 while RF and SVM produced 0.74 and 0.89, respectively. The S2 experiment produced accuracies higher than the S1 in that the overall performance of the KNN classifier was 0.87 while RF and SVM were 0.93 and 0.89, respectively. The combination of the S1 and S2 features elicited the highest accuracy estimates of the classifiers in that the KNN classifier recorded 0.89 while RF and SVM produced 0.96 and 0.93, respectively. In conclusion, the inclusion of S1 features improve the classifiers created with S2 features only

Doom and Boom on a Resilient Reef: Climate Change, Algal Overgrowth and Coral Recovery

Background: Coral reefs around the world are experiencing large-scale degradation, largely due to global climate change, overfishing, diseases and eutrophication. Climate change models suggest increasing frequency and severity of warming-induced coral bleaching events, with consequent increases in coral mortality and algal overgrowth. Critically, the recovery of damaged reefs will depend on the reversibility of seaweed blooms, generally considered to depend on grazing of the seaweed, and replenishment of corals by larvae that successfully recruit to damaged reefs. These processes usually take years to decades to bring a reef back to coral dominance

Football and social inclusion: evaluating social policy

Sport, particularly football, is increasingly recognized as a means for promoting social inclusion. Yet rigorous evaluations of football-based social inclusion projects are rarely carried out. This paper explains the importance of evaluation and proposes the use of realist evaluation as a framework for developing theory, informing social policy and improving project design. It also aims to develop a workable template for small-scale project evaluation. The paper draws a series of conclusions on how rigorous evaluation of football-based social inclusion projects can benefit participants, practitioners and policy makers, as well as football clubs and the communities they serve

Investigating the potential of Sentinel-1 to detect varying spatial heterogeneity in pasture cover in grasslands

Selective grazing by livestock may be indicative of a site's grass species diversity and depending on the grazing intensity" this may or may not promote further diversity. However, the detection of sites with spatial heterogeneity in pasture cover as a manifestation of selective grazing has not yet been investigated using satellite remote sensing. Thus, this study was conducted to address the question" can Sentinel-1 detect spatial heterogeneity induced by livestock grazing in grassy fields? Since Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging is noted to be sensitive to vegetation architectural arrangement, this study used Sentinel-1 C-band SAR to detect spatial heterogeneity created by selective livestock grazing. The study examined a range of semivariogram, grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), and eigenvector-eigenvalue polarimetric decomposition features. The coefficient of variation estimates of the GLCM contrast feature consistently produced the strongest correlation (R2 = 0.71) with Lloyd's Patchiness Index and semivariogram sill while the polarimetric scattering entropy (range estimates) produced a significant linear correlation with semivariogram sill (R2 = 0.55,

Exercise and Stress Tolerance

Presented in this paper is research designed in part to show that although moderate running by well-trained runners plays a significant role in reducing stress response to subsequently introduced stressors, running at the level of marathon competition alters psychological and physiological dispositions in a manner not conducive to reduced stress responses. In these demonstrations, the choice of our psychological and physiological dependent measures was guided by a larger theoretical framework concerning the relationship of exercise to temperament. We will discuss this larger view first because it provides a theoretical perspective that is useful in considering our specific hypotheses. We believe that regular aerobic exercise, with its requirements for sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation and associated endocrine activity, leads to chronic reduction in the individual\u27s experienced stress responses to psychological stressors. As long as two decades ago, Michael (1957) suggested that regular exercise would allow greater steroid reserves-reserves available to counter stress. Other similar views include that advanced by Edington and Edgerton (1976), who posit that extending the capacity of the adrenal medulla to generate the catecholamines through exercise may help to reduce the experience of stress. Moorehouse and Miller (1971) have suggested that exercise may increase the size and lower the threshold of stimulation of the adrenal glands, resulting in greater reserves of antistress steroids and shorter response times to stressors

Extreme warm temperatures alter forest phenology and productivity in Europe

Recent climate warming has shifted the timing of spring and autumn vegetation phenological events in the temperate and boreal forest ecosystems of Europe. In many areas spring phenological events start earlier and autumn events switch between earlier and later onset. Consequently, the length of growing season in mid and high latitudes of European forest is extended. However, the lagged effects (i.e. the impact of a warm spring or autumn on the subsequent phenological events) on vegetation phenology and productivity are less explored. In this study, we have (1) characterised extreme warm spring and extreme warm autumn events in Europe during 2003-2011, and (2) investigated if direct impact on forest phenology and productivity due to a specific warm event translated to a lagged effect in subsequent phenological events. We found that warmer events in spring occurred extensively in high latitude Europe producing a significant earlier onset of greening (OG) in broadleaf deciduous forest (BLDF) and mixed forest (MF). However, this earlier OG did not show any significant lagged effects on autumnal senescence. Needleleaf evergreen forest (NLEF), BLDF and MF showed a significantly delayed end of senescence (EOS) as a result of extreme warm autumn events; and in the following year’s spring phenological events, OG started significantly earlier. Extreme warm spring events directly led to significant (p=0.0189) increases in the productivity of BLDF. In order to have a complete understanding of ecosystems response to warm temperature during key phenological events, particularly autumn events, the lagged effect on the next growing season should be considered