| Ecosystem services are the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems,which play a fundamental guarantee for the sustainable development of human’s production and life system.Cultural ecosystem services are the non-material benefits for humans from spirit perspectives.Understanding on cultural ecosystem services is not only conducive to explore the potential natural ecological value of ecosystems and the added value of social cultures,but also has significance for maintaining the normal operation of ecosystems.In recent years,although cultural ecosystem services have received increasing attention,how to quantitatively evaluate their service level remains a great challenge because the non-material and non-consumable properity of cultural ecosystem services.Various ecosystems are the foundations and natural labs for scientific research,and provide significant support for the development of human scientific knowledge system and the massive scientific achievements.Therefore,scientific-research activities and their outputs are a major representation of cultural ecosystem services.The Three Parallel Rivers Region is characterized with complex topography/landforms,unique climate and diverse biological resources.This provides extremely rich natural conditions for implementing various scientific-research activities.Therefore,it is crucial to quantitatively evaluate the spatio-temporal pattern of the scientific-research support service as a typical type of cultural ecosystem services in Three Parallel Rivers Region;meanwhile,such study also help to enrich the existing assessment methods on cultural ecosystem services by demonstrating a typical case.In view of the problem that there is no unified quantitative standard for ecological system cultural services,this research takes scientific-research activities as a foothold and uses the number of published natural science scientific-research documents as indicators to quantitatively evaluate the temporal and spatial distribution pattern of scientific-research support services.Other areas are not considered for the time being scientific-research papers（except natural sciences）.Through systematically searching the core Chinese and SCI-indexed papers published in the natural science journals in Three Parallel Rivers Region,this study establishes a literature database including information on the spatial extent at township-level and other related attributes for each paper.The number of published papers is used as an indicator to quantitatively evaluate the spatio-temporal distribution pattern of scientific-research support service.From a perspective of qualitative analysis,this study first extracts the main research subjects of each paper,which should reflect the impact of natural resources on scientific-research support services.Then from a perspective of quantitative analysis,this study identifies the related influence factors（including variables of natural environments,socio-economics and ecological functions）on the distribution of scientific-research support service by using Random Forest model,and finally investigates the relative importance of each factor.The primary results and conclusions are as follows:（1）A total of 1,131 published papers on natural sciences were obtained in the study area,including 621 papers in Chineseand 510 papers in English.A database on the attribute information and spatial distribution for each paper was established Geology was the discipline with the largest number of publications（298 papers）,accounting for26.35% of the total number of papers,followed by geochemistry and geophysics（145papers）,zoology（125 papers）,environmental science and ecology（107 papers）,accounting for 12.82%,11.05%,and 9.46% of the total,respectively.And physical geography（93 papers）,mineralogy（90 papers）,botany（85 papers）,Water Resources Science（82 papers）,Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences（81 papers）,accounted for 8.22%,7.96%,7.52%,7.25%,and 7.16% of the total number of papers,respectively.The discipline with the fewest publications was astronomy and astrophysics,having only 25 papers.（2）The amount of scientific-research support service showed a continuous increasing trend with time,and the overall spatial pattern（Level I—V）exhibited as being higher in the east and lower in the west.The areas with the highest amount of scientific-research support service were mainly located in Shangri-La,Yulong and Lijiang,whereas the regions with the lowest amount of the service were mainly located in Gongshan,Fugong,Lushui and Weixi.In the vertical direction,scientific-research support service was mainly distributed in the middle-elevation areas,but the Level V scientific-research support service was mainly located in the high-elevation areas.（3）In terms of the different categories of research objects,the scientific-research support service for topography and geological disasters regarding are represented bywas mainly distributed in Yulong,Ninglang and Dali,etc.The services for mineral/rock resources and plant were mainly located in Shangri-La and Lanping.The service for land resource was concentrated in Jiantang,Lanping,Eryuan,and Yunlong,etc.The service for hydrology was widely distributed in the study area,except that some townships in Gongshan,Fugong,and Lushui had a lower level of the service.The distribution of the service for climate and meteorology was scattered,with the high-level service areas located in Shangri-La,Binchuan,Heqing and Yinqiao in Dali.The service for ecology was concentrated in Jiantang,Dali,Fengyi,and Xiaguan.The service for animal research was mainly locatedin Deqin and Weixi,and the service for astronomy was mainly distributed in Lijiang.（4）The spatial distribution of scientific-research support service is linked with the natural resource endowment in Three Parallel Rivers Region.The services for topography/geomorphology and geological hazards were affected by the frequent tectonic movements and special geological conditions.The service for mineral/rock resources depended on the wide distribution of various mineral and rock resources across the entire study area.The abundant river and lake water and wetland resources in the study area provided sufficient conditions for the formation of services for hydrology and land resources.The services for climate/meteorology,ecology,animals and plants were affected by the extremely diverse ecosystems and animal and plant resources that are nartured by the uniqiue climatic conditions in Three Parallel Rivers Region.（5）The results of the Random Forest model also showed that the natural resource endowment played an important role in the formation of scientific-research support service.In terms of the natural environmental factors,temperature and water related variables were the most influencial factors.In terms of the socio-economic and ecological function factors,the mean population density and livestock farming,water supply and carbon storage also played an important role in affecting the distribution of scientific-research support service. |
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