Who bears the distance cost of public primary healthcare? Hypertension among the elderly in rural India.

Hypertension is one of the most prevalent NCDs in the world. Its prevalence is especially high among the elderly, a demographic group on the rise in low and middle income countries. Extant medical literature calls for early detection to prevent aggravation of problems when old.

Disentangling the response of species diversity, forest structure, and environmental drivers to aboveground biomass in the tropical forests of Western Ghats, India.

Tropical forests are crucial to the global carbon cycle, but a significant knowledge gap in the precise distribution patterns of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) hinders our ability to formulate effective conservation efforts. A key unresolved issue is the lack of understanding of how forest AGB interacts with biotic and abiotic factors on large spatial scale. To address this, we used Structural Equation Modeling to disentangle the direct and indirect effects of environmental, anthropogenic, structural diversity species diversity and edaphic factors on AGB of trees, lianas and regenerating communities using the data from 96 1-ha plots in the central Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, India.

Phenological trends and associated climate drivers of a tree community in lowland dipterocarp forest, Western Ghats, India.

Understanding phenological responses of tropical forest plant communities is crucial for identifying climate-induced changes in ecosystem dynamics. Monitoring phenology across diverse species in natural habitats provides cost-effective insights for conserving both species and forests. We studied tree phenology in a lowland evergreen dipterocarp forest in the Western Ghats, India.

Face mask littering in coastal environment of Coromandel beaches, a comparison between street and beach littering - perspective and perceptions.

The usage of face mask has been encouraged globally to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. However, their improper disposal has begun to impact the environment. In the present study, face mask littering was assessed in sixteen stations across the beaches in Coromandel coast of South India for a period of four weeks.

Evaluation of spatial and temporal dynamics of seawater intrusion in coastal aquifers of southeast India: insights from hydrochemical facies analysis.

This study aims to investigate and understand the temporal and spatial movement of seawater intrusion into the coastal aquifers. Groundwater salinity increase has affected the entire eastern part of the study area and is primarily influenced by direct and reverse ion exchange reactions associated with intrusion and freshwater influx phases, which alternate over monsoons. To gain insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of the seawater intrusion process, hydrochemical facies analysis utilizing the HFE-Diagram was employed.

Four-decade (1977-2017) landscape tale of tourist reservoir hotspot El Piñol-Guatapé, Colombia.

Efficient management of land use/land cover (LULC) features is vital for a balanced sustainable ecosystem. Thus, this work aimed to document the LULC changes in the less studied El Peñol-Guatapé reservoir, Antioquia, Colombia, especially in the reservoir area due to the construction of a hydro-electric power plant. For this study, Landsat images of 1977, 1986, 1997, and 2017 were used and the results indicated an increase in the settlement area and road networks by 0.

Rethinking the nature of intraspecific variability and its consequences on species coexistence.

Intraspecific variability (IV) has been proposed to explain species coexistence in diverse communities. Assuming, sometimes implicitly, that conspecific individuals can perform differently in the same environment and that IV increases niche overlap, previous studies have found contrasting results regarding the effect of IV on species coexistence. We aim at showing that the large IV observed in data does not mean that conspecific individuals are necessarily different in their response to the environment and that the role of high-dimensional environmental variation in determining IV has largely remained unexplored in forest plant communities.

Carbon stocks of tree plantations in a Western Ghats landscape, India: influencing factors and management implications.

Biomass and carbon stock assessments in data-deficient plantations and identifying the factors influencing tree growth, distribution, and carbon stocks are extremely important for implementing sound silvicultural management and monitoring practices to achieve REDD+ goals. We conducted carbon stock assessments in five major plantation types in a regional landscape in the central Western Ghats, India, by establishing fifty 0.1-ha plots across the landscape.

A surge in obsidian exploitation more than 1.2 million years ago at Simbiro III (Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia).

Pleistocene archaeology records the changing behaviour and capacities of early hominins. These behavioural changes, for example, to stone tools, are commonly linked to environmental constraints. It has been argued that, in earlier times, multiple activities of everyday life were all uniformly conducted at the same spot.

Decadal forest dynamics in logged and unlogged sites at Uppangala, Western Ghats, India.

Selective logging disrupts forests, changing their structure and species composition. Long-term monitoring helps in identifying the factors influencing it and aids in designing management plans. We conducted a quantitative re-assessment of trees ≥ 30 cm girth at breast height in four 1 ha plots in logged and two 1 ha plots in adjacent unlogged compartments of Uppangala forest continuum in the Western Ghats, India to compare the structural and compositional changes after a decade (2010-2021).

Importance of Public Transport Networks for Reconciling the Spatial Distribution of Dengue and the Association of Socio-Economic Factors with Dengue Risk in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dengue is the most widespread mosquito-borne viral disease of man and spreading at an alarming rate. Socio-economic inequality has long been thought to contribute to providing an environment for viral propagation. However, identifying socio-economic (SE) risk factors is confounded by intra-urban daily human mobility, with virus being ferried across cities.

Tallo: A global tree allometry and crown architecture database.

Data capturing multiple axes of tree size and shape, such as a tree's stem diameter, height and crown size, underpin a wide range of ecological research-from developing and testing theory on forest structure and dynamics, to estimating forest carbon stocks and their uncertainties, and integrating remote sensing imagery into forest monitoring programmes. However, these data can be surprisingly hard to come by, particularly for certain regions of the world and for specific taxonomic groups, posing a real barrier to progress in these fields. To overcome this challenge, we developed the Tallo database, a collection of 498,838 georeferenced and taxonomically standardized records of individual trees for which stem diameter, height and/or crown radius have been measured.

Digital health for all: The turn to digitized healthcare in India.

In India, the use of digital technologies has become the key to the everyday operation of the welfare state in terms of accessing essential and life-sustaining entitlements. In this context, our article explores the genesis of India's digital turn in healthcare and maps the characteristics of a 'digital health for all' policy, based on empirical analysis of India's first digital-based universal health coverage programme - Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) - with fieldwork material from the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Being a smart-card-centred programme, RSBY marks the genesis of a digital approach to healthcare in India.

Prevalence of sustainable and unsustainable use of wild species inferred from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Unsustainable exploitation of wild species represents a serious threat to biodiversity and to the livelihoods of local communities and Indigenous peoples. However, managed, sustainable use has the potential to forestall extinctions, aid recovery, and meet human needs. We analyzed species-level data for 30,923 species from 13 taxonomic groups on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species to investigate patterns of intentional biological resource use.

Prevalence of microplastics in the sediments of Odisha beaches, southeastern coast of India.

The prevalence of microplastics along the coastal habitats has become a global concern owing to the increased input of plastic debris from multiple sources. The present study is the first of its kind to examine the prevalence and distribution of microplastics in Odisha coast. The average microplastic abundance in the nine stations along Odisha coastal beach is 258.

Evolving the structure: climatic and developmental constraints on the evolution of plant architecture. A case study in Euphorbia.

Plant architecture strongly influences ecological performance, yet its role in plant evolution has not been explored in depth. By testing both phylogenetic and environmental signals, it is possible to separate architectural traits into four categories: development constraints (phylogenetic signal only); convergences (environmental dependency only); key confluences to the environmental driver (both); unknown (neither). We analysed the evolutionary history of the genus Euphorbia, a model clade with both high architectural diversity and a wide environmental range.

Coastline variability of several Latin American cities alongside Pacific Ocean due to the unusual "Sea Swell" events of 2015.

This study aims to report the short-term coastline dynamics and inundation limits of coastal cities along the Eastern Pacific due to the sea swell events that occurred during April to May 2015. The multi-temporal satellite datasets from Landsat such as Enhanced Thematic Mapper (L7 ETM+) and Operational Land Imager/Thermal Infrared Sensor (L8 OLI/TIRS) of different periods before and after the swell events were used to identify the shoreline changes. The satellite images were pre-processed using ERDAS imagine 9.

Revealing drinking water quality issues and possible health risks based on water quality index (WQI) method in the Shanmuganadhi River basin of South India.

The aim of the study is to address the issues and associated health risks due to consumption of high-fluoride water supplied for drinking in a rural part of Shanmuganadhi River basin, Tamil Nadu, India. In this study, 61 groundwater samples were gathered from various tube and open wells and analysed for fluoride and other physicochemical parameters. The abundance of cations is Na > Ca > Mg > K, and that of anions is HCO > SO > Cl > F.

BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene.

Motivation: The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community-led open-source database of biodiversity time series.