Many recently designated or expanded nature reserves in China were forest farms that ceased operations in the aftermath of the catastrophic Yangtze River floods of 1998. Although the vegetation in many of these areas has been altered significantly during forestry operations, there is now an opportunity to reduce, or even reverse, habitat loss for wildlife species that inhabit these forests. One such species is the globally threatened Reeves's Pheasant Syrmaticus reevesii that is endemic to the forested mountains of central and south-west China. From April 2000 to August 2003, the habitat use by 14 male Reeves's Pheasants was studied by radio-tracking at Dongzhai National Nature Reserve in the Dabie Mountains, central China. Conifer-broadleaf mixed forest was used preferentially in all seasons at the study area scale, as were mature fir plantations and shrubby vegetation. Moreover, young fir plantations were used preferentially during the breeding season at the scale of the home range. Surveys recorded the pheasant in 13 other protected areas in the Dabie Mountains, and indicated that broadly similar habitat types were available in all of them. Furthermore, Reeves's Pheasant were found in habitats similar to those used preferentially at Dongzhai National Nature Reserve. It seems likely that a mosaic of habitats is crucial to meet the various requirements of male Reeves's Pheasants throughout the year and management should therefore concentrate on maintaining this mosaic. It is now important to identify the habitats that produce the most young pheasants so that nesting and brood-rearing habitats can be clearly identified. Further studies on the habitat mosaic would be useful, both at a local scale and also at a larger, landscape scale.

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With rapid urbanization occurring throughout China, the existence of Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus) in big cities is likely to be affected by a decrease in habitat and food availability. Can the urban Tree Sparrow adapt to these changes? To elucidate this question, we studied the effect of urbanization on the abundance and distribution of Tree Sparrows in Beijing. We found the abundance of the Tree Sparrow negatively correlated with an urbanization score. Sparrow abundance was very low in residential areas with high-rise buildings, commercial centers and main roads, while their numbers were significantly higher in parks, university campuses, low building residential and suburban areas. Environmental factors within the 50 m and 200 m scales were most suitable in predicting the distribution of Tree Sparrows during winter, while factors within 50 m and 400 m scales are suitable during the breeding season. During winter, the number of conifer trees and pedestrians were the major factors at the 50 m scale, while the area of high-rise buildings and vegetation become the predominant factors on a 200 m scale. Alternatively, during the breeding season the area of low buildings and the number of conifers and pedestrians were the main factors on the 50 m scale while the area of high-rise buildings and vegetation remained the most important factors on the 400 m scale. These results indicate that highly urbanized areas are not suitable habitats for the Tree Sparrow, although this species can adapt to human environments. Food and nest sites for urban birds should be considered in urban planning of big cities in developing countries.

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The purpose of this study is to validate the widely adopted Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) for the East Asian context. The researchers seek to find out whether TSES holds validity and reliability and is appropriate for use to measure teacher efficacy in China, Korea, and Japan. 489 teachers from the three countries participated in the study. CFA models were used to test the factorial structures of TSES for both 24-item long and 12-item short forms, and three-factor models were tested for both forms. The results showed that three-factor models did not fit well for all three country groups for the long form. The short form models' fit indices for all three countries were acceptable. The researchers proposed an 11-item three-factor model by removing one item from the original TSES short form and further tested the revised 11-item TSES for the three Asian groups. Results suggested that the 11-item model provided good model-data fit. In the following measurement invariance test, the 11-item TSES was used as the baseline model. The results from the test of the measurement invariance of the revised 11-item TSES scale suggested that this scale can be used in cross-culture studies about teacher efficacy in the East Asian context. The instrument may produce results that are possible to conduct comparisons across the three cultures.