Mount Kawa Karpo of the Menri ('Medicine Mountains' in Tibetan), in the eastern Himalayas, is one of the most sacred mountains to Tibetan Buddhists. Numerous sacred sites are found between 1900 and 4000 m, and at higher elevations the area as a whole is considered a sacred landscape. Religious beliefs may affect the ecology of these sacred areas, resulting in unique ecological characteristics of importance to conservation; recent studies have demonstrated that sacred areas can often play a major role in conservation. The goal of this study is to preliminarily analyze the vegetation of sacred areas in the Menri region using existing vegetation maps and a Geographical Information System (GIS) for remote assessment. Sacred sites are compared to random points in the landscape, in terms of: elevation, vegetation, and nearness to villages; species composition, diversity, and richness; and frequency of useful and endemic plant species. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) ordination reveals that sacred sites differ significantly in both useful species composition (p=0.034) and endemic species composition (p=0.045). Sacred sites are located at lower elevations, and closer to villages, than randomly selected, non-sacred sites (p< 0.0001), and have higher overall species richness (p=0.033) and diversity (p=0.042). In addition, the high-elevation (> 4000 m) areas of the mountain -a sacred landscape -are found to have significantly more endemics than lowelevation areas (p<0.0001). These findings represent an initial analysis of sacred sites and suggest that sacred sites in the Menri region may be ecologically and ethnobotanically unique.
Peatlands are an uncommon landscape feature in the Northern Rocky Mountains of the United States and provide habitat for a number of plant and animal species dependent on these environments. As such, peatlands are an important contributor to local and regional biological diversity. Peatlands also have considerable scientific value (via coring) as repositories of pollen and ash deposits, providing insight into postglacial vegetation and climates. Included in this report are a description of the physical components, vegetation, vascular and nonvascular flora, and invertebrate fauna associated with peatlands on National Forests in northeastern Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Also included are descriptions of 58 sites representative of the diversity of peatlands present within the study area. Research needs and conservation tools to protect peatlands are discussed.
Summary
This was a realistic military‐type exercise assessing unexpected, abrupt early‐morning awakening effects on immediate ‘executive function’ and the ability to comprehend and deal with a sudden emergency under a changing situation. Twenty (average age 21 years) healthy, highly motivated junior officer reservists were assigned randomly to two equal, independent groups, unforewarned as to what would happen. The experimental group was woken abruptly at 03 : 00 h (<3 h sleep) and confronted immediately with a ‘paper exercise’ of an enemy attack, requiring a feasible plan of engagement with minimal loss of resources, to be completed within 15 min. A control group slept until 07 : 30 h; they were then presented with the identical emergency 1 h later. Participants worked individually, under time pressure, receiving written information, map and other details, all containing relevant, irrelevant and misleading information. Halfway through, they were given (unexpectedly) a critical update necessitating a change of tactics. Performance was scored blind by instructors, under five categories. Eight of the experimental group versus three controls failed overall, with significant group differences on three specific categories relying on flexible decision‐making: ‘identification of available cover’, ‘use of available assets’ and ‘extraction of relevant from irrelevant information’. Other, logical and highly trained skills were unimpaired. Ours was a ‘worst case scenario’, combining short sleep, circadian ‘trough’ and sleep inertia, all of which differentiated the two groups, unlike typical laboratory studies. Nevertheless, it was relevant to real‐life situations involving highly motivated, trained individuals making critical innovative decisions in the early morning versus the normal waking day.
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