Utilization of ground-based digital photography for the evaluation of seasonal changes in the aboveground green biomass and foliage phenology in a grassland ecosystem

AbstractWe investigated the usefulness of a ground-based digital photography to evaluate seasonal changes in the aboveground green biomass and foliage phenology in a short-grass grassland in Japan. For ground-truthing purposes, the ecological variables of aboveground green biomass and spectral reflectance of aboveground plant parts were also measured monthly. Seasonal change in a camera-based index (rG: ratio of green channel) reflected the characteristic events of the foliage phenology such as the leaf-flush and leaf senescence. In addition, the seasonal pattern of the rG was similar to that of the aboveground green biomass throughout the year. Moreover, there was a positive linear relationship between rG and aboveground green biomass (R2=0.81, p<0.05), as was the case with spectra-based vegetation indices. On the basis of these results, we conclude that continuous observation using digital cameras is a useful tool that is less labor intensive than conventional methods for estimating aboveground green biomass and monitoring foliage phenology in short-grass grasslands in Japan

Effect of Cathodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on a Child with Involuntary Movement after Hypoxic Encephalopathy

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation to the supplementary motor area to inhibit involuntary movements of a child. An 8-year-old boy who developed hypoxic encephalopathy after asphyxia at the age of 2 had difficulty in remaining standing without support because of involuntary movements. He was instructed to remain standing with his plastic ankle-foot orthosis for 10 s at three time points by leaning forward with his forearms on a desk. He received cathodal or sham transcranial direct current stimulation to the supplementary motor area at 1 mA for 10 min. Involuntary movements during standing were measured using an accelerometer attached to his forehead. The low-frequency power of involuntary movements during cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation significantly decreased compared with that during sham stimulation. No adverse effects were observed. Involuntary movement reduction by cathodal stimulation to supplementary motor areas suggests that stimulations modulated the corticobasal ganglia motor circuit. Cathodal stimulation to supplementary motor areas may be effective for reducing involuntary movements and may be safely applied to children with movement disorders

Relation between continuous snow cover timing and NDVI in Alaska by ground-based interval camera and satellite observations

第2回極域科学シンポジウム/第34回気水圏シンポジウム 11月15日（火） 統計数理研究所 3階リフレッシュフロ

The Coxiella burnetii Dot/Icm System Creates a Comfortable Home through Lysosomal Renovation

Understanding the molecular pathogenesis of Coxiella burnetii, the causative agent of human Q fever, has historically been hindered by the technical difficulties of genetically manipulating obligate intracellular bacteria. The recent development of culture conditions suitable for axenic propagation of C. burnetii has paved the way for the application of a range of genetic techniques to address key questions within the field. Recent studies using mutational analysis have revealed that the C. burnetii Dot/Icm type 4 secretion system (T4SS) is an important virulence determinant that is essential for renovation of a lysosome into a mature Coxiella-containing vacuole (CCV) permissive of intracellular replication. Interestingly, a mutant of C. burnetii deficient in Dot/Icm function was found to be capable of replicating within the parasitophorous vacuole created by Leishmania amazonensis, which indicates that C. burnetii replication is not dependent on the cohort of Dot/Icm effector proteins per se but rather that the collective actions of effectors are required to create the specialized niche supportive of replication. Thus, a role for the Dot/Icm T4SS during the intracellular life cycle of C. burnetii has been more clearly defined by these studies, which demonstrate that advances in genetic analysis should allow future studies to focus on the intricacies of Dot/Icm effector functions that facilitate development of the unique CCV

Using Ordinary Digital Cameras in Place of Near-Infrared Sensors to Derive Vegetation Indices for Phenology Studies of High Arctic Vegetation

We thank Mark Gillespie, Nanna Baggesen, and Anne Marit Vik for field assistance. The University in Svalbard (UNIS) provided logistical support. This work was funded by the Norwegian Research Council through the ‘SnoEco’ project (project No. 230970) and Arctic Field Grant (No. 246110/E10). It was supported by the ESA Prodex project ‘Sentinel-2 for High North Vegetation Phenology’ (contract No. 4000110654), the EC FP7 collaborative project ‘Sentinels Synergy Framework’ (SenSyF), funding from The Fram Centre Terrestrial Flagship, also from the EEA Norway Grants (WICLAP project, ID 198571), and from the GRENE Arctic Climate Change Research Project, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Utility of commercial high‐resolution satellite imagery for monitoring general flowering in Sarawak, Borneo

General flowering (GF), irregular synchronous mass flowering of multiple tree species across multiple families, is a unique biological phenomenon of the mixed lowland dipterocarp forest in Southeast Asia. Characterizing the spatial extent and temporal dynamics of GF is essential for an improved understanding of climate–vegetation interactions and the potential climate change impact on this species-rich rainforest. We investigated the utility of newly available high-temporal (daily) and high-spatial (3–4 m) resolution remote sensing by the PlanetScope commercial satellite constellation for detecting flowering trees in a dipterocarp rainforest at Lambir Hills National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia. Our study was focused on the latest GF event known to have occurred in the region in the year 2019. PlanetScope successfully acquired 13 clear-sky or minimally cloud-contaminated scenes over the park during a study period of January 1, 2019 to August 31, 2019 encompassing the 2019 GF event. In situ phenology observations verified that the PlanetScope images detected the flowering crowns of tree species that turned into white or orange. This multitemporal image dataset also captured the flowering peak and species differences. The correlation coefficients between the multitemporal image signatures and in situ phenology observations were moderate to very strong (0.52–0.85). The results indicated that the 2019 GF event was a whole-park phenomenon with the flowering peak in May. This study reports the first successful satellite-based observations of a GF event and suggests the possibility of regional-scale characterization of species-level phenology in the dipterocarp forest, key information for biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia

Field experiments to test the use of the normalized-difference vegetation index for phenology detection

Some previous studies have detected the timing of leaf expansion and defoliation using the normalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI), but to examine tree phenology using satellite data, NDVI results should be confirmed using ground-truthing. We examined the relationship between NDVI and tree phenology during leaf expansion and defoliation by simultaneously observing the spectral reflectance of the canopy surface and canopy surface images in a cool-temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest. To define the timing of leaf expansion and defoliation using NDVI, the index should meet three criteria: (1) NDVI should exhibit a monotonous increase or decrease (monotonicity). (2) The relationship between NDVI and the forest canopy\u27s status should be unique (uniqueness). (3) The method is robust against the systematic noise (bias) (robustness). In the spring, NDVI values of 0.2–0.3 (relative values: 0.15–0.28) and 0.6–0.7 (relative values: 0.65–0.78) satisfied all three criteria. NDVI values of 0.6–0.7 can serve as potential criteria for detecting the timing of leaf expansion. In autumn, no NDVI values satisfied all three criteria. Thus, NDVI does not appear to be useful for detecting the timing of defoliation. For an area where evergreen vegetation or snow covers the forest floor in winter, our results suggest that previous uses of NDVI to identify the timing of leaf expansion and defoliation on the basis of the date of the maximum rate of growth or reduction of NDVI and the date with a value midway between the year\u27s maximum and minimum values are misleading

Development of New Functional Feed that Utilizes Yacon (\u3cem\u3eSmallanthus sonchifolius\u3c/em\u3e) and Rush (\u3cem\u3eJuncus effuses\u3c/em\u3e L.) in Japan

Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is acknowledged as a food as well as a medicinal plant and its cultivation in Ja-pan has recently expanded. Rush (Juncus effuses L.) which is widely distributed in the temperate regions in the north-ern hemisphere, has historically been used as a herbal medicine for nephritis and dermal disorders. However, there is a lot of harvest residue of both plants. This research was conducted to find out the way for the effective use of these residues as functional feed resources