Sandy Roads Research Articles

Goals of Restoration Ecology and the Role of Grasses in the Processes as Seen in Southeastern Africa Restoration Projects

The goals of a “restoration” programme are often not clearly defined, which may radically influence the course of the change effected by the “restoration”. In this paper, I examine many restoration studies worldwide, the goals and the practice that was followed. Grasses often play an important role in both the succession and restoration processes. In Johannesburg, South Africa, wind-blown dust caused by gold mining was a problem in the early 20th century, so the goal was to stabilise the tailings. This was achieved by establishing vegetation on the dumps or revegetation of the land on which the tailings were deposited. Stabilisation of the Cape Flats was the goal in the late 19th century to allow easy movement along sandy roads in the region and marram grass was introduced from Europe specifically for this purpose. Revegetation with a different vegetation type is often a logical option where land use is of paramount importance. Replacement with crop plants or grasses is where the previous vegetation is replaced by an alternative land use that will be of benefit to the local people. The terms “rehabilitation” and “restoration” are often used interchangeably. Early researchers on the subject pointed out that rehabilitation is on the trajectory to full restoration or the original former state of the degraded site. In this review, the rehabilitation processes are discussed following dune mining in South Africa and at sites in Mozambique.

An Improved U-Net Network for Sandy Road Extraction from Remote Sensing Imagery

The extraction of sandy roads from remote sensing images is important for field ecological patrols and path planning. Extraction studies on sandy roads face limitations because of various factors (e.g., sandy roads may have poor continuity, may be obscured by external objects, and/or have multi-scale and banding characteristics), in addition to the absence of publicly available datasets. Accordingly, in this study, we propose using the remote sensing imagery of a sandy road (RSISR) dataset and design a sandy road extraction model (Parallel Attention Mechanism-Unet, or PAM-Unet) based on Gaofen-2 (GF-2) satellite images. Firstly, the model uses a residual stacking module, which can solve the problem of poor road feature consistency and improve the extraction of fine features. Secondly, we propose a parallel attention module (PAM), which can reduce the occlusion effect of foreign objects on roads during the extraction process and improve feature map reduction. Finally, with this model, the SASPP (Strip Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling) structure, which enhances the model’s ability to perceive contextual information and capture banding features, is introduced at the end of the encoder. For this study, we conducted experiments on road extraction using the RSISR dataset and the DeepGlobe dataset. The final results show the following: (a) On the RSISR dataset, PAM-Unet achieves an IoU value of 0.762, and its F1 and IoU values are improved by 2.7% and 4.1%, respectively, compared to U-Net. In addition, compared to the models Unet++ and DeepLabv3+, PAM-Unet improves IoU metrics by 3.6% and 5.3%, respectively. (b) On the DeepGlobe dataset, the IoU value of PAM-Unet is 0.658; compared with the original U-Net, the F1 and IoU values are improved by 2.5% and 3.1%, respectively. The experimental results show that PAM-Unet has a positive impact by way of improving the continuity of sandy road extraction and reducing the occlusion of irrelevant features, and it is an accurate, reliable, and effective road extraction method.

Psammophilous Grasslands and Other Open Sandy Habitats in the Sandomierz Basin as a Refuge for Threatened Orthoptera in Poland

Psammophilous grasslands are declining in Europe due to ecological succession and anthropogenic pressures, yet they group many specialised invertebrates of early successional biotopes. We investigated the occurrence of six threatened species of Orthoptera in 135 patches of psammophilous grasslands and other open sand-related habitats (dry heaths, sandy roads, sand pits) located in the Sandomierz Basin (SE Poland). The aim was to verify whether these habitats, and especially the active military range, serve as a refuge for any of the selected species. Localities of Podisma pedestris and Calliptamus italicus found in the study area covering 0.7% of Poland’s territory represented a significant proportion (50 and 18%, respectively) of UTM grid squares known to be currently occupied by these species in the country. In the regional scale of southern Poland, studied habitats also accumulated a large proportion (ca. 17%) of the current localities of Oedipoda caerulescens. However, for Aiolopus thalassinus, Psophus stridulus and Sphingonotus caerulans the importance of the Sandomierz Basin as a country wide refuge was rather minor. Five of the six target species were found on the military range, with two (P. pedestris, P. stridulus) recorded only there. These results indicate that sand-related habitats are important refuges for some threatened orthopterans in the region and should be actively protected.

Обзор синтаксонов псаммофитной травяной растительности Южного Нечерноземья России

The article provides a survey of grass psammophylous vegetation syntaxa in the Southern Nechernozemye of Russia and validation of syntaxa in accordance with the requirements of the International Code of Phytosociological Nomenclature (Theurillat et al., 2021); questions of syntaxonomy and diagnosis of units of different levels of the syntaxonomical hierarchy are discussed. The data for the analysis was the base obtained in 2018–2021, including 312 relevés of psammophylous grass vegetation in the Southern Nechernozemye of Russia (Bryansk, Kaluga, south-west of Moscow, north-west of Oryol, Smolensk Regions). Most of the relevés were made on the watershed of two large river systems: the Dnieper (the Sozh river basin) and the Volga (the Oka river basin) while some ones are in the northwestern part of the Smolensk region (Demidovsky district, Smolenskoye Poozerye National Park), which belongs to the Zapadnaya Dvina basin. Natural psammophytic habitats in this region are widespread on outwash plains, sandy river terraces dominated by pine forests of the alliance Dicrano–Pinion sylvestris (Libb. 1933) W. Mat. 1962 nom. conserv. propos. Open sands are formed in the place of such forests after clear felling of pine with the destruction of the living land cover. In addition, psammophylous grass vegetation forms on non-flooded or short-flooded sandy ridges in river floodplains, on plowed sands that were opened during construction, along sand pits, on clearings under power lines, along old abandoned roads on sand embankments and sandy roads fallow lands and pastures with sandy and sandy loam soils (Kupreev et al., 2020). The psammophylous grass vegetation of the studied region is represented by 12 associations comprising 4 alliances and 2 orders of the class Koelerio–Corynephoretea canescentis Klika in Klika et Novák 1941, which unites dry grasslands on sandy soils and on rocky outcrops of the temperate to boreal zones of Europe, the North Atlantic islands and Greenland (Mucina et al., 2016). On the basis of comparative analysis for alliances and orders we compiled regional combinations of diagnostic species with constancy in coenoflora above 20 % and values of the statistical φ-coefficient above 20 (at p <0.01): Armerion elongatae (Armeria maritima, Astragalus arenarius, Dianthus fisheri, Jovibarba globifera, Jurinea cyanoides, Koeleria glauca), Corynephorion canesentis (Corynephorus canescens), Hyperico perforati–Scleranthion perennis (Berteroa incana, Festuca ovina, Helichrysum arenarium, Hypericum perforatum, Jasione montana, Pilosella officinarum, Rumex acetosella, Scleranthus perennis, Trifolium arvense). The following species diagnose the orders of psammophylous vegetation: Corynephoretalia canescentis (Chamaecytisus ruthenicus, Cladonia arbuscula, Corynephorus canescens, Jurinea cyanoides, Koeleria glauca, Sedum acre) and Trifolio arvensis–Festucetalia ovinae (Abietinella abietina, Elytrigia repens, Hieracium umbellatum, Jasione montana, Festuca ovina, F. rubra, Galium mollugo, Pilosella officinarum, Plantago lanceolata, Poa angustifolia, Trifolium arvense, Viola tricolor). Diagnostic combinations of alliances partly duplicate those of orders, and some species are the diagnostic for two alliances, which does not contradict the logic of syntaxonomy. Analysis of the comparative table showed that all syntaxa of psammophylous vegetation taken for analysis can be fully assigned to the class Koelerio–Corynephoretea canescentis in accordance with its current diagnosis (Mucina et al., 2016). According to the ratio of the diagnostic species of the classes Koelerio–Corynephoretea canescentis and Sedo-Scleranthetea, it is not possible to divide syntaxa into two groups. In general, in the Southern Nechernozemye of Russia, typical natural habitats characteristic of the Central European communities of the class Sedo-Scleranthetea are virtually absent. They are imitated by anthropogenic ecotopes with washed out or trampled, usually heavily disturbed, rubble substrates. Probably, it is possible to classify some types of grass communities that form here on the slopes of railways and roads, on overgrown stony dumps, strongly compacted as a result of trampling or the passage of vehicles, to the class Sedo-Scleranthetea. However, the assigning of these communities to this class is debatable. A significant part of the studied phytocoenoses was assigned to 7 non-rank units — «communities» within the class Koelerio–Corynephoretea canescentis. These are, firstly, pioneer and, as a rule, sparse or floristically incomplete psammophylous communities at the initial stages of succession with the participation of widespread grass psammophilic oligotrophs. Secondly, these are monodominant phytocoenoses formed after anthropogenic disturbance of psammophylous vegetation, for example, on fallow lands and clearings in pine forests on sandy and sandy loam soils; after fires, trampling. The names of these syntaxa are given according to the dominant plant species.

Measuring and Predicting Erosion on Sandy Roads to Inform Strategies for Sustainable Transport Network Management: A Case Study of the Great Sandy National Park, Australia

Different surveying methods were used to assess and illustrate road profile changes and sediment displacement over a six-month period at four sites on a sand road at Cooloola, Queensland, Australia. Total monthly traffic and total monthly rainfall (two-way ANOVA without replication, p < 0.05) had an effect on the mean centre dumpy level depths and sediment displacement at one site (correlation 0.81 for total monthly traffic/mean centre dumpy level depths), but not at the other three sites. Traditional road-surface field measurements showed large changes in volume and weight of sediment movement and Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) modelling predicted an annual sediment yield (i.e., sand displacement from road) of 115.37 kg with a total sediment loss of 7,551.36 kg for each 120 m by 6 m site over the next 80 years. The methodology used can be applied to other national parks and protected areas and for the effective and sustainable management of sand road networks.

Catch fast and kill quickly: do tiger beetles use the same strategies when hunting different types of prey?

BackgroundTiger beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae) are fast running predatory insects preying on different small insects and other terrestrial arthropods. Prey is located by sight and captured after short and fast pursuit interspersed with pause-and-look behaviour. At least some tiger beetle species can recognise the size and location of prey using memory, which probably allows them to achieve greater hunting success.Material and MethodsTwo eurytopic tiger beetle species known to occur in different types of habitat were used in the study: Cicindela hybrida hybrida, a very common central European beetle found even in artificial habitats such as sandy roads or gravel pits, and Calomera littoralis nemoralis, a species widely distributed in southern European countries and occurring on sandy sea beaches, in salt marshes, as well as on sandy banks of rivers and lakes. Both species are very similar in body size. Specimens used in the study were collected in the field and later tested in the laboratory. We checked whether tiger beetles use different hunting strategies when attacking prey of different sizes and abilities to escape as well as whether the sex of the studied species makes a difference in its hunting behaviour.ResultsThe hunting strategies of both tiger beetle species consist of the following main phases: identification, pursuit (often with stops), attack, and optional release of the prey, and then the secondary attack, abandonment of the prey, or consumption of the prey. Considerable differences were noticed in hunting behaviour depending on the type of prey, its movement ability and escape potential. Caterpillars were attacked without pursuit, in the head or directly behind the head where a concentration of nerves and main muscles responsible for walking are located. Effective attacks on beetles were executed at the connection between the thorax and the abdomen. Calomera littoralis strongly preferred slow moving prey, while Cicindela hybrida preferred in equal measure slow moving prey and medium-sized fast moving prey. The experiment on the preferred size of prey indicated small beetles and small caterpillars as favoured by Calomera littoralis, while Cicindela hybrida preferred medium-sized fast moving prey and large caterpillars.DiscussionThe hunting behaviour of Calomera littoralis and Cicindela hybrida is complicated and includes a number of phases allowing to locate, capture and kill the prey. Beetles are able to discriminate between different types of prey and apply different behavioural tactics to hunt it. As the particular strategies are used to increase hunting success, and as a result allow to accumulate energy for future activity of the predator, it can be expected that such a type of hunting behaviour is characteristic also of other tiger beetle species.

Migration, Regional Traditions, and the Intricacy of Documentary Representation in Cuates de Australia and La chica del sur

Approaches to telling a story are, of course, abundant. Latin American filmmakers borrow from all kinds of artistic traditions—literature, pop music, the plastic arts, home movies, etc. What makes this borrowing both draining and stimulating is that the web offers an excess of examples to draw from. Further, digital production and online distribution are cultivating a new kinship among filmmakers, visual traditions, and viewers across the world. This is a daunting realization that the current crop of young filmmakers is trying to grapple with. Two recent documentary films from Mexico and Argentina bring the topic of social and cultural migration into focus, giving international audiences the opportunity to enter otherwise inaccessible worlds. Cuates de Australia (Drought) from Mexico and La chica del sur (The Girl from the South) from Argentina display contrasting approaches to portraying the hardships of relocation. Both documentaries follow their protagonists’ journeys from the place they call home to an unfamiliar land and their bittersweet return. Cuates de Australia, directed by Everardo Gonzalez, is an enigmatic film. It goes out of its way to remain removed from its subject, but it cannot help but become enamored of its own rendition of it. This essential quality works in the film’s favor, since it creates sequences of great tenderness and anguish. It was filmed in the Sierra de Coahuila, Mexico, in the ejido known as Cuates de Australia. This is a region of dusty hills, with a cluster of adobe houses (Figure 1). The sandy roads are strewn with abandoned truck tires. Coyotes and snakes roam in search of prey. Dust forms abstract sketches on the windows, and children strain to see the clouds through these designs. The settlement, like the ones in edgy American Westerns such as Martin Ritt’s Hud (1963), feels atemporal. Its color palette is sepia, and this helps give the cinematography its magnetism. There are few things more visually striking than men riding horses and lassoing cattle in a cloud of dust. Vigor, readiness, integrity, and determination give rural labor a certain glamour. When asked, people are unable to explain why their ranch is named “Cuates de Australia.” It is a fitting name for the film, though, because it reminds us of the lunar landscapes of central Australia and the menacing news stories about rising temperatures and droughts in that country. A candid scene, full of innocence and foreboding, reveals that the children cannot find their town on a map. Where is this place? Why should audiences care about these people? Should we see them as representing a destiny that awaits us all? If the drought that creeps through the landscape, eating all life 512265LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X13512265LATIn AMERICAn PERSPECTIVESCrowderTaraborrelli / Film Review 2013

Comparative demography of a rare species in Florida scrub and road habitats

Anthropogenic habitats can offer opportunities for expansion of rare species. The federally listed herb Hypericum cumulicola is virtually restricted to natural gaps within fire-maintained Florida scrub, but also occurs within and along sandy roads traversing scrub. To test the hypothesis that sandy roads provide suitable habitat for H. cumulicola, we compared the demographic performance of scrub and road populations at the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest and Archbold Biological Station in south-central Florida. Twice a year in February and August 1997–2006, we assessed recruitment and survival; annually in August we also measured maximum height and estimated reproductive output of tagged individuals. Scrub population dynamics were more stable than road populations. Recruitment increased with rainfall in scrub populations, but not always in road populations. Compared with scrub populations, road populations were weedier, with more variable life spans, earlier flowering, and higher fecundity. Germination rates did not differ between individuals from different habitats, but varied depending on simulated weather conditions. The weedier life history may reflect a divergent selective environment (and perhaps an evolutionary and ecological trap). Alternatively, adaptive plasticity in H. cumulicola may allow the species to maintain populations in anthropogenic habitats that can serve as refugia for fire-suppressed scrub populations.

Avifauna of a Locality in the Upper Orinoco Drainage of Amazonas, Venezuela

This paper reports the findings of several surveys of the avifauna of the region surrounding two remote fishing camps in the upper Rio Orinoco region of Amazonas, Venezuela. This area is of particular interest because it has been little-explored by ornithologists, and because of the predominance in the region of habitats derived from white-sand soils. We provide information on a number of range extensions, including one species (Pale-bellied Mourner, Rhytipterna immunda) for which there were no previous records for Venezuela. We also provide information on the vocalizations, foraging ecology, and habitat preferences for many rare or poorly known species, including Mitu tomentosa, Neomorphus rufipennis, Notharchus ordii, Myrmotherula cherriei, and Hylophilus brunneiceps. Our observations of Hylophilus brunneiceps also have taxonomic implications. The soil-based insularity of the local terra firme habitat as a factor limiting local bird distributions is also discussed. Resum£n. Este papel reporta los encuentros de varios reconocimientos de la avifauna de la region rodeando dos campamentos de pezca remotos en la parte superior del Rio Orinoco en la region de la Amazonas, Venezuela. Esta area es de interes particular porque se ha explorado poco departe de ornitologos y porque la predominancia de habitaciones en la region se diriven de terrenos de arena-blanca. Proveemos informacfon sobre varias extensfones, incluyendo un especie {Rhytipterna immunda) por el cual no se encuentran archives anteriores en Venezuela. Tambien proveemos informacfon sobre las vocalizaciones, forraje ecologico, y habitaciones preferidas departe de muchos especies raros 6 poco conocidos incluyendo Mitu tomentosa, Neomorphus rufipennis, Notharchus ordii, Myrmotherula cherrei, y Hylophilus brunneiceps. Nuestras observacfones de Hylophilus brunneiceps tambien tiene implicaciones taxonomicas. La insulacion de la base terrena cercano, habitaciones terra firme, como punto que limita la distribucion de pajaros tipicos tambien se di scute. In February 1990 we began surveying the birds in the area surrounding a small fishing camp, Campamento Junglaven, in the interior of the Territorio Federal de Amazonas, Venezuela, at approximately 05°06'N, 66°44'W (ca. 156 km E-SE from Pto. Ayacucho), south and east of the Rio Orinoco and northwest of the Rio Ventuari (Fig. 1). The camp is located on the left (east) bank of Creek, a small tributary flowing south into the Rio Ventuari. A second nearby fishing camp Camani Camp is on the north bank of the middle Rio Ventuari, between the Indian village of and the mouth of the Rio Manapiare. The area is completely undeveloped except for the two camps and ca. 15 km of sandy roads connecting them to the shared airstrip. Access is limited to boat or small aircraft. Annual precipitation is ca. 2,550-3,000 mm, much of it concentrated in June through October (Schwerdtfeger 1976). There is a pronounced November-May dry season. The surrounding area contains a mosaic of different soil types that support a natural patchwork of distinct vegetation types. Much of the area is dominated by white-sand soils covered by grassy savanna with scattered shrubs (1-3 m in height) and small stands of Mauritia palms. Bordering these savannas are scrubby, low-canopy (3-10 m) woodlands (= savanna woodlands) that are also found on white-sand soils. These woodlands are dense, with an understory that is often nearly impenetrable. They are somewhat deciduous, with a partially open canopy, and are seasonally flooded (June-October). Scattered lagoons and oxbows within these woodlands retain standing water throughout the dry season (November-May). The Ventuari and its many small tributaries are flanked by wide bands of taller (15-25 m) forest that grows on yellow-clay soils and is seasonally flooded. This vdrzea forest is characterized by a more closed canopy with a fairly open understory and an abundance of vines and lianas. Farther from the river, large isolated

Ewe Funerary Sculpture

Much has been written recently about Ghanaian art both traditional and modern, and readers of African Arts are familiar with the striking and colorful cement sculpture made by the Fante on the central coast. Both the monumental military shrines (posuban) for the asafo companies, with life-size soldiers, officials, and symbolic animals set in the context of European warships and forts (see Preston 1975, Cole & Ross 1977), and the modern sculptured gardens containing Biblical personages for the Apostolic Christian and Divine Healing Churches (see Briedenbach & Ross 1978) are by-products of the introduction of Portland cement in the early 20th century (Briedenbach & Ross 1978:34). Less well known is the tradition of cement funerary art that has evolved among the Ewe, who live east of the Volta River in southeastern Ghana, which does not appear to be related to that of their Ghanaian compatriots to the west. If anything, it seems probable, considering the historical origins of the Ewe from the east and their maintenance of traditional patterns of visiting with people to the east, that this art form derives from southern Nigeria.1 The Anlo Ewe, well known as fishermen, farmers, and weavers, live in a series of towns set along the coast from Anloga to Lome. Christianity was introduced early (the mid-19th century by the Bremen Mission and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church), and with it came Western-type education. Broad tarmac roads now carry cars and trucks across the area, along the coast, and up to the north. Alongside these roads are an increasing number of modern cement-block houses, but inland there are also traditional mud-and-wattle dwellings, and on the coast are compounds surrounded by walls of woven mats. The modern coastal highway abruptly turns into broad, sandy roads dotted with crudely modeled mud and cement ritual statues, called legba, which act as protective figures for the town, family, or individual; medicinal pots on forked sticks; and conical thatched huts covering representations of the mystical forces known as vodu (Gilbert, in press). A great number of spirit cults and widespread belief in witchcraft and in protective deities coexist with well-patronized orthodox and unorthodox Christian churches.

AN ARBOREAL ORCHELIMUM

Those who visit the pine-barrens of New Jersey know what a pleasure it is to ramble along the narrow wooded-ppaths among the pine trees ; old paths that after once being made continue for many years, and may seldom entertain a pedestrian. Along these paths and by the side of the sandy roads, any time during late summer arrd until frost, one may hear a faint, lisping little song from a grasshopper corning from the pines, often from their topmost branches. It is an easy matter to climb the pitch-pine, which is usually arranged admirably for the purpose, and the grasshopper is also friendly to investigation, and commonly continues to stridulate.

Specific Characters among the Mutillidæ

THE discussion in your columns as to the utility of specific characters leads me to offer a few remarks on the Mutillidae, an interesting family of Hymenoptera. In the arid region of the United States, this family is very numerously represented, and its members may be seen running about in warm weather, especially frequenting sandy places, roads and pathways. It is not at first apparent why the species should be so numerous, living under what seem to be identical or almost identical conditions; in 1893 (Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc., xx. 343), I wrote: “It is difficult to account for the origin of so many species under conditions which can hardly at any time have been very diverse.” But the region in question is inhabited by very many species of bees, the modifications of which have relation to a varied flora, as I have illustrated by particular instances elsewhere (Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1896, pp. 33–41). The various Mutillidae are parasitic in the nests of these bees, and consequently do not live under identical conditions; we have a varied flora with its varied insect-visitors, and these with varied parasites, the whole series of phenomena intimately connected, though at first sight it would seem impossible to see any connection between the flowers and the mutillids, however indirect.