Abstract: The dbmss package for R provides an easy-to-use toolbox to characterize the spatial structure of point patterns. Our contribution presents the state of the art of distance-based methods employed in economic geography and which are also used in ecology. Topographic functions such as Ripley’s K, absolute functions such as Duranton and Overman’s Kd and relative functions such as Marcon and Puech’s M are implemented. Their confidence envelopes (including global ones) and tests against counterfactuals are included in the package. © 2015, American Statistical Association. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Amerindian populations have been experiencing major socio-economic changes for several decades, in a context of rapid demographic growth. This article addresses the ways in which the Amerindian populations of French Guiana have adapted their land use and natural resource management systems to cope with the pressures exerted on their lands and lifestyles. The aim was to investigate the resilience of their systems for land and natural resource use. The concentration of Amerindian habitats around the town of Camopi, which is linked to the availability of health and school infrastructure and to efforts to promote a sedentary lifestyle, is a factor of increasing natural resource scarcity and social alienation. The system is adapting by fragmenting the Amerindian habitat into peripheral villages and extending farmlands along rivers to access to more space. These villages replicate patterns of spatial organisation that are similar to those found in traditional Wayãpi and Teko villages, except that habitation is sedentary, as families hope to have their villages equipped with at lEast drinking water and electrification. Habitat fragmentation is spatially limited by the time taken for daily journeys to school, and therefore by school bus services (dugout), which means that land use is effectively conditioned by services and infrasrtucture. Other living quarters are maintained at a distance from the village, so that the habitat is bi-local: families have a main home where services and infrastructure are available, and a secondary itinerant home further away, which is chosen according to the quality of farmland, the hunting yield of hunting resources, the history of the location and family networks. These distant homes are kept up by spending income from social assistance on transport. It's thus shown that these Amerindian systems for land and natural resource uses are highly adaptable, in that their sustainability is guaranteed by the reconstruction of a circular pattern of mobility in accordance with the intensity of resource use.

Abstract: High-density Airborne Laser Scanning was used to derive the Canopy Height Model (CHM) of an experimental forest site in the neotropics (Paracou, French Guiana). Individual tree heights were computed by manually segmenting tree crowns on the CHM and then extracting the local maximum canopy height. Three hundred and ninety-six (396) height estimates were matched from dominant or emergent trees with the corresponding ground records of stem diameters sampled in two plots with different mean canopy heights (28.1 m vs. 31.3 m). Tree slenderness was found to be positively and very significantly correlated with mean canopy height at the plot level. The same correlation was observed at the species population level for the three species adequately sampled. It can therefore be concluded that stratification by canopy height is to be recommended when deriving allometric relationships in order to avoid bias in Above Ground Biomass estimations.

Abstract: To recommend applications in the field of a naturally insecticide plant substance as an alternative to chemical control against termite attacks, several important prerequisites need to be satisfied to ensure its effectiveness. The toxicity, lethal dose, mode of action, persistence of insecticide effect and chemical composition of total aqueous, alcohol and hexane extracts of the leaves and seeds of the neem tree, Azadirachta indica, were tested with the Macrotermes bellicosus termite. The extracts were found to be highly toxic to termites on contact, killing the entire population tested. The insecticide effect of the extracts persisted from 2.4 to 4.2 days. The aqueous and hexane extracts were the most toxic (LD50 0.422±0.018 to 4,466±0,162 mg/l). Contact and inhalation were both essential to their effectiveness. The aqueous extract of seeds, which is the most active, is also capable of being transferred through the colony during social tasks. However, it seems to have an anti-appetent effect on termites and does not act by ingestion. It contains phenol compounds (tannins and flavonoids) and saponins. The hexane extract of seeds is oily and contains 11 fatty acids as well as terpenoids, flavonoids and saponins.

Abstract: Wallaba (Eperua falcata) is a tropical wood that is known to have naturally high moisture related dimensional stability. Samples of wallaba heartwood were subjected to differential solvent extraction. Wood pieces that were extracted with methanol showed significantly greater swelling following rehydration from oven dry to 96% relative humidity than non- extracted samples and samples extracted with other solvents. Methanol soluble wallaba heartwood extract was purified by HPLC and the compounds present were characterized by NMR spectroscopy. The structure of 13 compounds in methanol extract was identified. The relative proportion of polar compounds in methanol extract was found to be high. The compounds identified are proposed to bind to the polymeric cell wall by means of multiple hydrogen bonds restricting the association of water and therefore act as natural anti-swelling agents.