Medicinal plants play a vital role in global health systems, yet their persistence is increasingly jeopardized by ecological degradation and unsustainable exploitation. Among these, several species in subtropical landscapes are facing heightened extinction risks due to cumulative anthropogenic pressures. Despite growing recognition of these threats, integrated ecological assessments that account for both species–environment interactions and spatial conservation needs remain limited. This study addresses this gap by evaluating the community structure, environmental threats, and habitat suitability of a threatened medicinal plant in a subtropical region. The objectives were to characterize co-occurring plant communities, quantify anthropogenic stressors across distinct habitats, and delineate conservation priority areas using ecological niche modeling. Field surveys across 40 sites in the subtropical lowlands region of Pakistan recorded vascular plant assemblages within circular quadrats, while six key threats were assessed using a standardized ordinal scale. Bioclimatic variables were integrated into predictive habitat modeling to estimate spatial suitability. The study identified 106 associated plant species across five habitat types, with indicator species reflecting specific ecological contexts. Co-occurrence patterns showed a predominance of non-random associations, suggesting complex ecological structuring. Disturbance gradients revealed that grazing and overharvesting dominated in scrub and sandy habitats, while pollution and invasive species were more influential in roadsides and agricultural margins. Urbanization was not a major driver of species composition. Habitat modeling showed a strong dependence on precipitation seasonality, with high-suitability zones concentrated along river corridors and irrigated plains. Temperature-related variables contributed minimally, indicating broad thermal tolerance. Suitability declined sharply in arid and highly urbanized regions, reflecting ecological limits. These findings highlight the importance of community-level dynamics and climatic drivers in shaping species persistence. Conservation planning should integrate threat assessments and habitat modeling to prioritize areas for protection and restoration.
Urban sustainable development is inseparable from carbon–neutral parks, where greenery and water bodies play a crucial role. They not only contribute to carbon sequestration but also significantly enhance the environmental quality of cities. This study investigates the relationships among carbon footprint, Landscape Element Proportions (LEP), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and carbon neutrality efficiency (CN) in 34 urban parks in Taiwan. Carbon footprint, NDVI, LEP, and CN values were calculated, and Pearson correlation analysis was used to examine their associations. The results showed that eight parks had positive CN values. Based on the observed distribution patterns among parks with relatively higher NDVI and CN values, the study identifies two indicative LEP references: approximately 7:2:1 for parks with water bodies (Softscape: Waterbody: Hardscape) and approximately 8:2 for parks without water bodies (Softscape: Hardscape). These ratios should be interpreted as exploratory design references rather than definitive prescriptions. It was also found that Softscape is negatively correlated with Waterbody and Hardscape, while positively correlated with NDVI and CN. Conversely, Hardscape shows a negative correlation with NDVI and CN, whereas CN and NDVI are positively correlated. Based on these findings, it is recommended that park design and maintenance processes minimize carbon emissions and select suitable LEPs according to the type of park. The significance of this study lies in providing a scientific basis for park design and improvement, enabling professionals to quickly and accurately assess the carbon neutralization capacity of parks before designing or making improvements.
River fragmentation by dams significantly alters downstream biotic communities. Although taxonomic metrics are standard for impact assessments, incorporating functional diversity (FD) indices provides deeper mechanistic insights into ecosystem alterations. Despite most studies focusing on large-scale dams, we here focus on a small-scale dam system with tributary inflow to elucidate how these ubiquitous structures influence downstream ecological organization. We evaluated the impact of Sugo Dam in Hyogo, Japan, on macroinvertebrate communities in winter and summer using taxonomic diversity and FD indices. We found that the dam imposed a persistent environmental filter characterized by substrate coarsening and altered hydraulic conditions, leading to functional homogenization dominated by sessile filter-feeding taxa immediately downstream. With increasing distance from the dam, functional and taxonomic structures exhibited longitudinal functional re-diversification and compositional restructuring. These downstream shifts were associated with attenuation of physical habitat constraints along the main stem, facilitating the occurrence of additional life forms such as grazers and tube-builders and reducing dominance by dam-tolerant taxa. While tributary inflow contributed to localized increases in trait occurrence, functional re-diversification began along the main channel prior to tributary confluence, indicating that longitudinal weakening of physical constraints was the primary driver of community restructuring. Our results demonstrate that integrating functional diversity trajectories with taxonomic patterns improves detection of habitat-mediated ecological reorganization in dam-fragmented rivers, highlighting the importance of substrate heterogeneity and microhabitat complexity in shaping downstream functional structure.
Urban green spaces are essential resources directly linked to citizens’ quality of life, providing a wide range of ecosystem services. However, existing policies and research have primarily focused on quantitative indicators such as area, while overlooking the qualitative values as experienced by residents. This study aims to bridge this gap by integrating quantitative indicators (green space ratio) with structural indicators representing qualitative aspects (spatial configuration), to examine how everyday encounters with green spaces influence citizens’ satisfaction with ecosystem services. Focusing on Suwon Special City, the study calculated neighborhood-level green space ratios using the Moving Window technique and assessed structural characteristics based on landscape ecology–derived Landscape Metrics. In particular, the study included not only commonly recognized green spaces such as parks and forests, but also apartment greens, urban farmlands, and rivers, thereby capturing the full spectrum of everyday nature experiences. By comparing spatial indicators between groups with high and low satisfaction levels for each ecosystem service function, the study identified the effects of factors such as cohesion, connectivity, and fragmentation beyond simple green area. The analysis revealed differentiated relationships by function: experience-based services such as “ecological experience and education” and “recreation” were strongly influenced by the spatial structure of green spaces, whereas “regulation of climate and disaster” showed a weaker association at the neighborhood scale. These findings suggest that future urban green space planning should move beyond quantitative expansion toward function-based spatial strategies to enhance perceived quality and functional performance.
For older residents, a neighborhood park is not only the land inside its boundary. It is reached through nearby streets, seen from sidewalks and entrances, and used through paths, planting, seating, shade, and other interior features. When these components are collapsed into one park-exposure measure, an NDVI buffer, access score, street-view greenness index, or park audit score can be mistaken for the same environmental claim. We asked whether the same environmental measures explained two outcomes that should not be assumed to share a pathway: self-reported sleep quality and subjective memory. To test this, we linked 774 adults aged 55 years and older living within 500 m of 27 neighborhood parks in Taichung, Taiwan, to three sets of park-catchment measures: neighborhood NDVI and Walk Score®, street-view visual composition, and field-audited park-interior design. Park interiors were audited for senior-friendly design domains. The surrounding catchments were measured separately from above, using NDVI and Walk Score®, and at eye level, using semantic segmentation of approximately 8000 Google Street View images. Decision trees were used as an exploratory screening step for non-linear candidate predictors; the retained variables were then tested in ordinal GEE models that accounted for clustering within the 27 park catchments. Sleep and subjective memory were associated with different environmental profiles. Sleep quality was the outcome most consistently tied to greenness: higher sleep scores were associated with higher catchment NDVI, higher Walk Score®, greater visible vegetation, higher Streetscape values, and higher park-interior Nature scores. Subjective memory followed a different pattern. It was associated with Landformscape and with audited Safety, Physical-feature, and Aesthetic-quality scores, but not with catchment NDVI; visible greenness was inversely associated with subjective memory after adjustment. These findings caution against grading parks with a single greenness or access metric: in this sample, sleep and subjective memory were associated with different parts of the park-catchment environment. Park assessment for older adults should therefore keep interior design, approach streets, and neighborhood greenness analytically separate until the outcome is specified.
Montane ecosystems support rich biodiversity, but they suffer from anthropogenic impacts such as land alteration, overuse, and introduction of non-native species. Although large and medium-sized mammals play important roles in the maintenance of ecosystem functions, their responses to anthropogenic disturbances are rarely discussed in relation to the management of montane protected areas. Here, we conducted a camera-trap survey on Mt. Tsukuba, a popular natural area in Japan, to describe the species composition and diversity of large and medium-sized mammals and to estimate the effects of anthropogenic disturbances on their occurrence. Twenty-four cameras with automatic sensors were set at elevations ranging from 245 to 867 m in areas with multiple vegetation types and intensity of human use. We recorded a total of nine mammal species; the most frequently recorded mammal was wild boar (Sus scrofa), followed by Japanese badger (Meles anakuma), dog (Canis lupus familiaris), and the exotic masked palm civet (Paguma larvata). Analysis with a generalized linear mixed model suggested that elevation, plantation forest, and human occurrences were negatively associated with wild boar occurrences. Similarly, plantation forest was negatively associated with Japanese badger occurrences. Since the dominant native species appeared to be sensitive to forest alteration and human use, avoidance of anthropogenic disturbances in natural forests is an important management option to preserve habitat for native mammal species.
Urban greenery offers significant ecological and psychological advantages; however, widely used visibility metrics, such as the Green View Index (GVI), are limited to a single horizontal viewpoint. Modified metrics that encompass broader viewpoints often require specialized expertise and lack temporal and spatial adaptability. To overcome these limitations, we have developed a practical method that can be deployed in the field for assessing urban greenery visibility. This method uses a commercially available 360-degree camera and AI-based image segmentation. Panoramic images were transformed into upward- and downward-facing fisheye views with an equisolid angle projection. Vegetation was then extracted from the images using the SegNet model. The resulting metric, designated as the Spherical GVI (SGVI), was applied to two contrasting 1 km × 1 km urban areas in western Japan, namely Tomio (a residential area) and Esaka (a commercial area), to evaluate its usability and robustness. SGVI distributions differed between the two areas, reflecting their distinct spatial characteristics. To evaluate the robustness of the SGVI, it was compared with the conventional Panoramic GVI (PGVI), which is derived from an equirectangular projection. The results showed that SGVI was generally higher than PGVI, particularly in the commercial area where PGVI tends to underestimate the amount of greenery due to geometric distortion. These findings highlight the importance of projection-aware metrics in urban greenery assessment. This cost-effective, reproducible, and scalable approach requires little technical expertise or processing effort, making it appropriate for municipal green space surveys, policy monitoring and citizen science initiatives.
Rapid urbanization has caused severe degradation of coastal wetlands; therefore, scientific plant configuration is urgently needed to support ecological restoration. Based on the close-to-natural concept, this study aims to construct plant configuration patterns suitable for different microenvironments of coastal wetlands in northern China. To this end, this study established a “selection–assembly–validation” research framework for plant configuration, using Jiaozhou Bay as the study area, and investigated high-quality native local communities surrounding restoration areas and their environmental factors. Based on the survey, 45 species with application potential were selected and classified into nine configuration patterns through cluster analysis. Subsequently, redundancy analysis (RDA) and multiple comparisons of environmental factors identified electrical conductivity, available potassium, and soil water content as the main environmental filters. Accordingly, the study area was divided into three stress types and matched with the configuration patterns. Finally, species associations were analyzed using a JSDM model (based on the direction of posterior residual correlation coefficients and posterior support ≥ 0.8). The results showed 88 positively correlated species pairs and 84 negatively correlated species pairs, verifying the rationality of the configuration patterns; meanwhile, environmental factors were verified through variance partitioning in the JSDM model, and the suitability of different configuration patterns under each environmental type was verified through analysis of species–environment correlations in the JSDM model. The configuration patterns constructed in this study are applicable to coastal wetlands with similar climatic characteristics, and the research framework provides a feasible pathway for native plant landscape construction in coastal wetlands.
Urbanizing watersheds face compounding pressures from simultaneous land cover and climate change, with potentially compounded implications on streamflow dynamics and sediment transport. This study presents an integrated modeling framework to evaluate streamflow and sediment responses to land cover and climate change projections. Land cover dynamics were simulated using the Multilayer Perceptron–Markov Chain (MLP–MC) and integrated into the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to assess hydrological and sediment responses. Climate projections were derived from an ensemble of five Global Climate Models (GCMs) under two different representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). A multi-scenario assessment was conducted to quantify the individual and combined impacts of climate and land cover change on the hydrology and sediment transport within the Alibeyköy Watershed, a critical drinking water resource for Istanbul, Türkiye. Under the business-as-usual no intervention scenario, land cover projections indicate rapid urban expansion exceeding 400
Community parks are considered crucial for reducing pollution, sequestering carbon, and promoting recycling, thereby supporting China's "dual carbon" goals in its pursuit of sustainable urban development. Drawing on data from a comprehensive survey of community parks in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China, this study extracted six typical indicators of spatial configuration, three-dimensional form, and landscape pattern of green space. It then conducted studies on PM2.5 reduction (∆PM2.5) and CO2 reduction (∆CO2) in the spring. Pearson's correlation analysis and linear regression methods were utilized to investigate the impact, and simulations were conducted to further analyze these relationships. The results demonstrate that: (1) The area, perimeter, and area-weighted shape index were positively associated with ∆PM2.5 ∆CO2 within the selected community parks. (2) A positive relationship was also observed between patch area and the effective reduction boundary across different park sizes. In the comparative simulation scenarios, the strongest reduction for both pollutants was observed around 264 m, particularly in the model settings representing parks of 2–3 hm2. (3) Enclosed planting showed more effective than distributed and row planting in reducing PM2.5 and CO2. (4) PM2.5 and CO2 reduction exhibited a positive synergistic tendency as green space area increased. These findings provide case-based evidence from Xi’an for community park planning in high-density urban environments, offering novel insights for multi-scale community park design aimed at sustainable urban transformation.
This study aimed to classify nature restoration sites for abandoned farmlands considering the land’s characteristics, supporting the nature-positive initiative. Forty-two sites restored in abandoned farmlands in Japan, which included 14 sites investigated in previous surveys—were examined, and an attempt was made to classify the types of the nature restoration sites. Using Quantification Theory Type III and a structural analysis of the survey sites, which considered environmental and human activity factors, the sites were classified into 10 types along two axes: dry-to-wet conditions and human activity to natural succession. These types included Ponds and Swamps, Riparian Forest, Low-Stem Marsh, Rough Paddy Field, Wetland with Uneven Surfaces, Mountain Marsh, Satoyama Grassland, Potential Natural Vegetation, Rough Grassland, and Reedy Wetland. The term “Satoyama” refers to the traditional rural landscapes in Japan where people live in harmony with nature while managing and sustaining forests and farmland. We also examined the differences among habitat types, their associated environmental conditions and the corresponding nature restoration approaches. In addition, assessment criteria for applying these types were established through interviews with local stakeholders associated with the sites. Seven social factors were identified as important for restoration of the 10 habitat types, including one factor that was added compared with our previous study. Finally, the 10 site types were evaluated based on these factors, clarifying key social factors that should be considered when applying these restoration methods to abandoned farmlands.
Direct seeding is used for the restoration of extensive areas, but seed germination, seedling stabilization, and survival depend on the development of adequate techniques. This study evaluated plant emergence, survival, establishment, and growth using seed balls with different substrates for the restoration of a decommissioned landfill area in the municipality of Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Seed balls made with manure and 45
Aquatic fungi play critical roles in carbon cycling through complex interactions with dissolved organic matter (DOM). However, their community associations with DOM across reservoir ecosystems remain poorly understood. This study investigated the relationships between fungal community structure and chromophoric DOM across Japanese reservoirs based on fungal sequencing and the optical properties of DOM. Fungal α-diversity showed positive correlations with DOM quantitative indicators (absorption coefficients and fluorescence peaks) and quality indicators such as peak M: T (ratio of humic-like to protein-like fluorescence), suggesting that greater DOM quantity and humification were associated with higher fungal α-diversity across reservoirs. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance based on Jaccard dissimilarity revealed that DOM humification indicators were associated with fungal community β-diversity in univariate models; for example, humification degree (peak M: T) explained 2.8
Invasive freshwater fishes pose serious threats to native biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but management resources for prevention and control are limited. The Korean perch, Coreoperca herzi, a predatory freshwater fish native to the Korean Peninsula, has recently established itself in the Oyodo and Tone River systems in Japan and has begun causing serious negative impacts on the ecosystem. This study aimed to predict the spatial distribution of potential establishment risk of the Korean perch within the Japanese Archipelago by using a species distribution model based on occurrence records from the native range and environmental variables. Presence records were obtained from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and combined with hydroclimatic variables from WorldClim and HydroATLAS. A random forest algorithm modified for class-imbalanced data was employed. Model tuning and evaluation were conducted using catchment-based spatial cross-validation to enhance spatial transferability, and predictive performance was assessed using the area under the curve (AUC) and the true skill statistic (TSS). The final model achieved high predictive accuracy (AUC = 0.80; TSS = 0.56) on an independent test dataset. River discharge, river slope, and maximum summer water temperature were identified as key predictors of habitat suitability. Projection of the model onto Japanese river networks indicated that environmentally suitable habitats for Korean perch are widely distributed, particularly in mid- to upper reaches of rivers. These results provide a spatial basis for prioritising monitoring and eradication and highlight the importance of preventive management in high-risk catchments before invasion or at early invasion stages.
Landscape fragmentation, the breaking up of continuous landscapes into smaller, isolated patches, significantly impacts habitat fragmentation. It reduces habitat area, increases isolation of wildlife populations, and lengthens habitat edges, disrupting ecological processes, reducing biodiversity, and threatening species survival by limiting resources and increasing vulnerability to external threats. This study aims to assess pattern of landscape fragmentation and its impact on the habitat fragmentation in an ecological region in Lower Gangetic plain using geospatial technology and landscape spatial metrics from 1991 to 2021. A habitat fragmentation index (HFI) has been developed following the framework proposed by human development index (HDI). The results showed that in the entire region, built-up area significantly increased (increased by 310.50
We evaluated the relationship between the activity location of Japanese house bats (Pipistrellus abramus) and environmental factors, including traffic and artificial light, in an urban landscape. From August to October 2020, we recorded the flight activity of Japanese house bats using bat detectors at 120 randomly selected sites in Tsuruoka City, northeastern Japan. We conducted a generalized additive model (GAM) to analyze the relationship between the bat activity and environmental factors (distance from the water body, NDVI, sound pressure, and illuminance intensity). The GAM results showed that the bats are most active close to the water body. The response curve for NDVI showed that bat activity increased as the NDVI value increased. Sound pressure levels exceeding approximately 50 dB tended to reduce the bats’ activity. As for illuminance intensity, there was a peak of activity at 15–20 lux, and when the illuminance intensity exceeded about 20 lux, the activity of bats tended to decrease with increasing illuminance intensity. These results suggest that Japanese house bats selected the location near the water body with a greater amount of vegetation as the activity site and adapted to the urban environment by avoiding or utilizing human disturbance. This indicates that the Japanese house bats do not use the entire urban landscape evenly, and they have selectivity for various local-environmental factors within the landscape.
Transmission tower sites often experience concentrated rainfall owing to structural water collection, resulting in large-diameter raindrops that intensify soil erosion and hinder vegetation growth. This study investigated the impact of raindrops on soil loss and plant development to inform greening strategies for slope stabilization. Simulated rainfall experiments were conducted on four plant species: Eragrostis ferruginea (Thunb.) P. Beauv., Pennisetum alopecuroides (L.) Spreng., Zoysia japonica Steud., and Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers. var. dactylon at design intensities of 100 and 200 mm/h (measured intensities 79 and 163 mm/h). Measurements of vegetation coverage, plant height, and sediment runoff revealed that soil erosion significantly decreased when vegetation coverage exceeded 40
Spatial information on the range of species lies at the core of effective biodiversity management. We implement a framework to assess the distribution of Tectona philippinensis, an endangered Philippine tree with a narrow distribution and dwindling population from anthropogenic exploitation. Our methodology applied maximum entropy modeling in conjunction with standard range estimation metrics through extent of occurrence (EOO) area of occupancy (AOO) to assess its current distribution and spatially prioritize cultivation regions. After implementing principal component analysis to distill 44 environmental descriptors, habitat suitability was modeled using 27 occurrences. The model showed acceptable performance (AUC = 0.947, TSS = 0.63) and predicted highly suitable areas within the EOO concentrated in Puerto Galera, San Teodoro, and Calapan in the Mindoro islands. Bioclimatic factors had a profound influence on predictions, with marginal contributions from edaphic, topographic, and anthropogenic variables. Range estimates also show a decrease in EOO but an increase in AOO from the previous conservation assessment. While conservation of remnants should take precedence, this study indicates potential sites that could be useful when exploring ex-situ conservation avenues. Additionally, the need to strengthen forest management is emphasized, as its suitable geographic space remains limited in the present scenario.
Rapid urbanization in arid regions increasingly produces compact towns embedded within irrigation-dependent agricultural landscapes, yet it remains unclear whether bird abundance in such systems is governed primarily by internal urban morphology or by the spatial configuration of surrounding cropland. This study quantified scale-dependent drivers of bird abundance and occupancy in the center of 68 small settlements of an arid basin using functional-group–specific zero-inflated models. Bird surveys in mid-spring 2022 (7:00–9:00 local time) recorded 2,772 individuals belonging to 42 species into three macro-ecological (Agricultural, Tree-dependent, and Urban) bird groups. Urban bird abundance increased with urban area (β = 0.176, p < 0.01) and building coverage (β = 0.360, p < 0.01) and declined with building isolation (β = − 0.071, p < 0.01). Agricultural bird abundance increased with the PCA-derived cropland continuity index (PC1; β = 2.175, p < 0.05), which simultaneously reduced zero-inflation probability by 38
The Javan Hawk-Eagle (Nisaetus bartelsi) is an endangered raptor whose conservation has been constrained by limited high-resolution ecological data. This study integrates satellite telemetry and citizen science records within an ensemble modelling framework, incorporating LiDAR-derived canopy structure, to assess current habitat suitability and potential future changes. Model performance was high (TSS = 0.904; ROC = 0.963). Habitat suitability was strongly associated with the mean temperature of the wettest quarter (Bio_8), with peak suitability around 15 °C, and with canopy height, with higher suitability in forests exceeding 25 m. Suitable habitat was concentrated in sub-montane zones (700–1450 m asl), where climatic and structural conditions overlap. Climate projections indicated relative stability or expansion of suitable habitat until 2040, followed by divergence among scenarios. Under SSP5-8.5, lowland areas showed substantial declines by 2100, while higher elevations exhibited relative stability or increases. However, these areas may differ in structural characteristics, potentially affecting habitat quality. Overlay with protected areas showed that 67.72
