Energy allocation is revealed while behavioural performance persists after fire disturbance.

Metabolic physiology and animal behaviour are often considered to be linked, positively or negatively, according to either the performance or allocation models. Performance seems to predominate over allocation in natural systems, but the constraining environmental context may reveal allocation limitations to energetically expensive behaviours. Habitat disturbance, such as the large-scale fire that burnt wetlands of Biebrza National Park (NE Poland), degrades natural ecosystems. It arguably reduces food and shelter availability, modifies predator-prey interactions, and poses a direct threat for animal survival, such as that of the wetland specialist root vole Microtus oeconomus. We hypothesized that fire disturbance induces physiology-behaviour co-expression, as a consequence of changed environmental context. We repeatedly measured maintenance and exercise metabolism, and behavioural responses to the open field, in a root voles from post-fire and unburnt locations. Highly repeatable maintenance metabolism and distance moved during behavioural tests correlated positively, but relatively labile exercise metabolism did not covary with behaviour. At the same time, voles from a post-fire habitat had higher maintenance metabolism and moved shorter distances than voles from unburnt areas. We conclude there is a prevalence of the performance mechanism, but simultaneous manifestation of context-dependent allocation constraints of the physiology-behaviour covariation after disturbance. The last occurs at the within-individual level, indicating the significance of behavioural plasticity in the context of environmental disturbance.

Was it really different? COVID-19-pandemic period in long-term recreation monitoring - A case study from Polish forests.

The COVID -19 pandemic posed serious challenge for securing public health worldwide. Public health preparedness and restrictions put in place impacted many aspects of human life, including recreational activities and access to outdoor recreational destinations. Green spaces have become one of the few sources of resilience during the coronavirus crisis due to their restorative effects on psychophysical health and community well-being. The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of the COVID -19 pandemic on forest visitation. The results are based upon long-term visitor data acquired via pyroelectric sensors (Eco-Counter) in three forest districts located in Poland (Browsk, Gdansk & Kozienice Forest Districts). The analysis covers the period between January 01, 2019 and December 31, 2020 and the results confirm changes in recreational use in the studied forest areas during the pandemic compared to the preceding year. However, observed changes in forest visitation vary by pandemic period and study area. The ban on access to forest areas significantly reduced the number of forest visits in all studied areas. The number of visits to sub-urban forests (Gdansk Forest District) and to remote nature-based tourist destinations (Browsk Forest District) increased in the later pandemic periods, especially in the summer months of 2020, while it remained the same in a popular nearby recreation area: Kozienice Forest District. There were only minor temporal shifts in the distribution of weekly and daily visits. The results are important for public health preparedness planning in crisis situations and for provisioning conditions supporting societal health and well-being. Objective data on forest visits are necessary for successful management of forest areas and surrounding amenities. More cross-sector collaboration and public participation would be desirable to create sustainable, resilient, and liveable spaces for the society. Management Implications: •Long-term visitation monitoring is crucial for successful management of outdoor recreation destinations and their catchment areas.•Objective numbers concerning forest visitation from the pre-pandemic and COVID-19 pandemic period allow observing trends and making fact-based management decisions during period of crisis.•Changes in the investigated three forest study areas in Poland were not homogenous, which implies the necessity of systematic visitor monitoring in multiple destinations, in order to cover different types of forest areas and also local diversity in recreational use.•More intersectoral, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary exchange would be desirable to better integrate existing on-site visitor monitoring data into decision making processes related to forest management, urban planning, transportation, tourism and public health.

Fractional Order Dual-Phase-Lag Model of Heat Conduction in a Composite Spherical Medium.

In the paper, a solution of the fractional dual-phase-lag heat conduction problem is presented. The considerations are related to the heat conduction in a multi-layered spherical medium with azimuthal symmetry. The final form of the analytical solution is given in a form of the double series of spherical Bessel functions and Legendre functions. Numerical calculations concern the study of the effect of the order of the Caputo derivative on the temperature distribution in a composite solid sphere, hemisphere and spherical cone.

Exact and Numerical Solution of the Fractional Sturm-Liouville Problem with Neumann Boundary Conditions.

In this paper, we study the fractional Sturm-Liouville problem with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions. We transform the differential problem to an equivalent integral one on a suitable function space. Next, we discretize the integral fractional Sturm-Liouville problem and discuss the orthogonality of eigenvectors. Finally, we present the numerical results for the considered problem obtained by utilizing the midpoint rectangular rule.

Does winter supplementary feeding affect deer damage in a forest ecosystem? A field test in areas with different levels of deer pressure.

BACKGROUND: Supplementary feeding is a widespread but controversial practice in game management. While many studies have been conducted on this issue, there is limited empirical evidence on how feeding affects damage caused by wildlife. In this context, the present study focused on the effect of artificial winter feeding on tree damage in three mountain regions in Poland. RESULTS: The presence of additional winter food did not increase tree damage caused by deer in any region, as expected. Moreover, we observed that additional feeding mitigated forest damage in one region, where the highest level of deer impact had occurred. However, in this mountain region, the most important factor was elevation, which was used to classify additional feeding practice as efficient or inefficient. In the two other study regions, we did not observe any effect of supplementary feeding. CONCLUSIONS: Additional winter supplementary feeding can reduce damage caused by deer in forest stands, but only in areas with high deer pressure. Moreover, feeders should be situated in locations > 600 m above sea level in our study area. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.

What do we expect from forests? The European view of public demands.

The paper constitutes an overview of the hitherto prevailing knowledge of the factors which influence the attractiveness of forests. What is more, it shows, in a cross-sectoral manner, the study methods and general preferences of people in the context of recreational use of forests. 109 papers published in the years 2000-2016 have been analyzed. In the work, five main issues were discussed, which constitute the study subject i.e.: a) the preferred forest type and function; b) expenses incurred by people to reach a forest (time and distance); c) the society's demand for technical infrastructure and forest management; d) factors disturbing the recreation in forest areas; e) reasons and frequency of visits to forests for recreation purposes. The results indicate that the following have an impact on the perception of forests: tree stand factors (age, species composition, etc.), social factors (age, material status, interests, etc.), and factors related to human activity (the extent of forest operations, noise, littering, etc.). Based on the literature, it is possible to indicate a model forest, which in view of respondents, is described as the one that is preferred for recreation purposes. The model differs depending on the analyzed part of Europe.

The Role of Topography in the Distribution and Intensity of Damage Caused by Deer in Polish Mountain Forests.

The increase in the deer population observed in recent decades has strongly impacted forest regeneration and the forest itself. The reduction in the quality of raw wood material, as a consequence of deer-mediated damage, constitutes a significant burden on forest owners. The basis for the commencement of preventive actions in this setting is the understanding of the populations and behaviors of deer in their natural environment. Although multiple studies have been carried out regarding this subject, only a few suggested topography as an important factor that may influence the distribution and intensity of deer-mediated damage. The detailed terrain models based on LiDAR data as well as the data on damage caused by deer from the State Forests database enabled thorough analyses of the distribution and intensity of damage in relation to land form in this study. These analyses were performed on three mountain regions in Poland: the Western Sudety Mountains, the Eastern Sudety Mountains, and the Beskidy Mountains. Even though these three regions are located several dozen to several hundred kilometers apart from each other, not all evaluated factors appeared common among them, and therefore, these regions have been analyzed separately. The obtained results indicated that the forest damage caused by deer increased with increasing altitude above 1000 m ASL. However, much larger areas of damage by deer were observed at elevations ranging from 401 to 1000 m ASL than at elevations below 400 m ASL. Moreover, the locations of damage (forest thickets and old stands) indicated that red deer is the species that exerts the strongest pressure on forest ecosystems. Our results show the importance of deer foraging behavior to the structure of the environment.

Simulations of thermal processes in tooth proceeding during cold pulp vitality testing.

PURPOSE: This paper deals with the mathematical modeling of the thermal processes occurring in the tooth, during a very brief contact (a few seconds) with a very cold liquid on a part of the tooth crown. In this way one can simulate a heat transfer in tooth proceeding during a dental diagnostic test - pulp vitality testing. The impact of rapid ambient thermal changes acting on the tooth can cause toothache. METHODS: The mathematical model: a system of partial differential equations with initial-boundary conditions (the axiallysymmetrical problem) and their numerical solutions using the control volume method is discussed. RESULTS: Simulation results of the kinetics of the temperature changes inside the tooth are presented. The example of the control volume mesh (using the Voronoi polygons) well describing the shape of a molar tooth is given. CONCLUSIONS: The simulation results (the temperature distribution in the tooth at any moment of the simulation time and the kinetics of temperature variation at the points of the tooth domain considered) can help dentists in the selection of an appropriate method of treatment.