Impact of land use land cover change on ecosystem services: a comparative analysis on observed data and people’s perception in Inle Lake, Myanmar

Abstract Background A healthy wetland provides a range of goods and services contributing to human wellbeing. Inle Lake, the first Biosphere Reserve in Myanmar, has been supporting the local inhabitants with ecosystem services (ES) including habitat for a wide range of biodiversity. In the recent years, influenced by land use land cover change (LULCC), the lake has witnessed changes with altered flow of ES, affecting human well-being. Communities’ perceptions are often undermined, when it comes to research LULCC. We analyzed LULCC change data from 1989–2000 to 2000–2014 using Landsat imageries. This was then linked to ES considering dependency through qualitative data collated from participatory rural appraisal tools and structured questionnaires focusing on people’s perception to understand the LULCC dynamics and its implication. Results During 25 years (1989–2014), there has been a sharp reduction of 164 km2 perennial wetland area in the Inle Lake, which is 4.2-fold higher in 2014 to that of 1989. Similarly, forest area has been declined by 92 km2 (8.56%) in last 25 years. Contrary to this, cropland area showed an increment of 60.67% in 2000 and 64.53% in the year 2014 alone giving a total increase by 268 km2 over the last 25 years and an expansion of 40 km2 seasonal freshwater area were observed showing periodic increment over the time. Communities from the three study areas, namely, Kyaung Taung, Zay Gon and Kyar Taw are found to have high dependence in their surrounding ecosystems. These villages utilizes 17 ES from forest ecosystem, 13 from agro-ecosystem, 10 from seasonal and 4 from perennial water body for their livelihood respectively. Around 93% of the respondents opined that forest ecosystem has decreased over the last 10 years. Around 40% of the respondents reflected an increase in area used for cropland; 43% conversely perceived a declination. About 63% of the respondents perceived such changes have brought huge reduction in availability of freshwater ES. A significant number of respondents (92%) perceived an enormous reduction in seasonal water body during the dry season. Conclusion Observed decreasing trends in forest and perennial wetland areas were consistent with people’s perceived changes. Communities associate loss of forest and wetland area with reduced availability of ES as well as degraded health of the lake

Mentor-mentee program with Medical Students: A successful program with ethical considerations

Background: Mentoring is the relationship of a guide or a teacher with another person/student augmenting his/her carrier growth, knowledge, skills, and experiences implemented by caring, sharing and helping hands. The aim of this paper is to highlight the mentoring, type of mentoring, how important of matching and consideration of ethical issue in mentoring program. Not missing these significant points, mentoring program could be successful in universities including medical faculty. Methods: The SMART principles of specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound are essential to structure the matching between mentor and mentee. The rule of etiquette and ethical issues are crucial and beneficial for mentor-mentee relationship. Clinical mentoring programs help to develop students’ clinical skills and can increase interest in under-subscribed specialties. Positive mentoring plays a part in reversing the decline of academic medicine, by sparking interest through early research experiences. Results: There is the short term goal which is to introduce an immediate support network for incoming students and the long term goal is to cultivate a mentoring culture to engage all strata of medical students and every faculty member. Medical students expressed that mentoring program is to provide counselling, develop professionalism, increase students' interest in research, and support them in their personal growth. Conclusion: The goal of mentorship is to provide additional support to student or mentee by steering of the academic needs or social prerequisites to accelerate the personal and professional development of mentee with advice, guide and feed backs from the mentor

A summary of the Pondaung fossil expeditions

We briefly summarize the fossil expeditions of the Eocene Pondaung Formation of central Myanmar by the Kyoto University field parties with Myanmar researchers during the field seasons of 1998-2003. We briefly report our contributions to the study on the Pondaung fossils, providing locality data, a list of the Pondaung vertebrate fauna, comments of the repositories of the specimens, and specimen lists, with references of the studies on the Pondaung Formation and Pondaung fossils. The Pondaung vertebrate fauna currently consists of three species of fishes (three orders and three families), 16 species of reptiles (three orders and 10 families), one species of birds, and 53 species of mammals (seven orders and 25 families). The age of the Pondaung fauna is determined as the late middle Eocene by the geological and microfossil evidence. The paleoenvironment of the Pondaung fauna is estimated to be forested/woodland vegetation with humid/subhumid moisture and large rivers, which were located not far from seashore. The Pondaung mammalian fauna includes many artiodactyl taxa compared to other middle Eocene faunas of East Asia and shows relatively high endemism at the generic level among the contemporaneous mammalian faunas of East Asia. The Pondaung fauna includes several mammalian taxa that indicate migration between Eocene Southeast Asia and Eocene western Eurasia/North Africa

Additional file 2: of A cross-sectional survey of soil-transmitted helminthiases in two Myanmar villages receiving mass drug administration: epidemiology of infection with a focus on adults

Sample size back calculation. (DOC 85 kb