Simulated manipulation experiments, such as nitrogen addition to mimic atmospheric nitrogen deposition, are widely used in global change research. However, experimental manipulations may differ from real‐world environmental change in their intensity, duration, and co‐occurrence, leaving long‐term changes in soil microbial communities and soil health insufficiently understood. To address this gap, we resampled soils from 38 for...

As the world's population grows, aquaculture is becoming a rapidly growing source of protein. Grass carp ( Ctenopharyngodon idella ) is one of the most important aquacultured species in China and has emerged as a significant commercial fish worldwide. However, grass carp reovirus (GCRV) poses a significant threat to grass carp aquaculture. This review covers GCRV biology, phylogeny, pathogenesis, immune response pathways, ther...

Under global change, terrestrial plants adjust their physiological metabolism alongside adaptive restructuring of rhizosphere microbial communities, yet the mechanistic links between plant phenotypic plasticity and microbial consortia remain unclear. Here, we conducted a meta‐analysis of 272 global‐change experimental comparisons and found that, among all global change factors examined, nitrogen addition exerted the strongest...

With the escalation of global warming, the potential for land evaporation in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) has increased remarkably, and the problem of soil drought has become increasingly prominent. This not only restricts the development of the agricultural economy in the basin, but also intensifies the disparity between water availability and demand, and exerts a profound influence on the ecological security of the basin. In...

Genetic diversity is vital for population survival, yet there is a paucity of studies focusing on the effectiveness of establishing protected areas for maintaining the population genetic diversity of threatened plant species. To evaluate the effectiveness of in situ conservation measures, we used simple sequence repeats (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) markers to monitor temporal dynamics in genetic diversity of...

Since 1989, China has become the world's largest aquaculture producer through pond culture, significantly contributing to global food security but potentially posing environmental threats. However, little is known about the changes in the pond water quality at broad spatial and temporal scales, thus creating challenges in the sustainability of pond aquaculture. Herein, we explore changes in water quality in China's aquaculture...

Brachymystax tsinlingensis Li is a threatened fish species endemic to China. With the problems of environmental factors and seeding breeding diseases, it is important to further improve the efficiency of seeding breeding and the basis of resource protection. This study investigated the acute toxicity of copper, zinc and methylene blue (MB) on hatching, survival, morphology, heart rate (HR) and stress behaviour of B. tsinlingen...

Aim The widely observed positive response of productivity to biodiversity, known as the biodiversity‐productivity relationship (BPR), underpins nature‐based solutions for mitigating and adapting to global changes. Little is known of the role of such emergent processes in the restoration of damaged ecosystems. Here, we test for evidence of a BPR in degraded freshwater lakes, and its role in underpinning or undermining lake reco...

High winds are a type of catastrophic weather characterized by wind speeds over 10.8 m·s −1 , occurring in all seasons, and have become more frequent, impacting crop growth, agricultural production and quality of life. It is crucial to understand the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of high winds, as well as their speed and other characteristics, for logical planning of agricultural production and the creation of dis...

Maize is susceptible to drought and low temperatures. In recent years, drought, low temperatures, and their composite events have often occurred during the growth period of maize, causing a huge impact. In this study, maize in the Songliao Plain was used as the research object. Based on the crop water surplus deficit index (CWSDI) and heat index (F(T)), combined with the Theil–Sen median and Mann–Kendall tests (Sen–MK) and emp...

Anthropogenic long‐term nitrogen (N) deposition may dramatically impact biocrusts due to the overarching N limitation of soil biota in deserts. Even low levels of N may reach a critical loading threshold altering biocrust constituents and function. To identify the impact of chronic and continuous low levels of N deposition on biocrusts, we created a realistic gradient mirroring anthropogenic N addition rate (2:1 NH 4 + : NO 3...

A systematic understanding of dynamic animal extinction trajectories for different regions in a nation like China is critically important to developing practical conservation strategies. We explored historical and contemporary changes in terrestrial mammalian diversity to determine how diversity in each of the 5 regions in China has changed over time and to examine the conservation potential of these regions. We used records f...

Summary Hypocrealean Trichoderma are the most extensively studied facultative mycoparasites against phytopathogenic fungi. Aerial hyphae of Trichoderma guizhouense can rapidly proliferate over Fusarium oxysporum hyphae, cause sporadic cell death and arrest the growth of the host. The results of the present study demonstrated that a unique short‐chain dehydrogenase/reductase (SDR), designated as TgSDR1, was expressed at a high...

Top‐down and bottom‐up controls regulate the structure and stability of ecosystems, but their relative roles in terrestrial systems have been debated. Here we studied a hydro‐inundated land‐bridge system in subtropical China and tested the relative importance of these two controls in determining the rodent‐mediated regeneration of a locally dominant tree species. Our results showed that both controls operated in terrestrial ha...

It is critical to accurately estimate carbon (C) turnover time as it dominates the uncertainty in ecosystem C sinks and their response to future climate change. In the absence of direct observations of ecosystem C losses, C turnover times are commonly estimated under the steady state assumption ( SSA ), which has been applied across a large range of temporal and spatial scales including many at which the validity of the assump...

In this study, a full‐sib population of Ctenopharyngodon idella was constructed and approximately 500 C. idella individuals were sampled at four early developmental stages (hatching, first feeding, juvenile fish and young fish). Four DNA pools were constructed and subjected to next‐generation sequencing. On the basis of the identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), changes in gene and genotype frequencies during...

Biological soil crusts across the desert regions play a key role in regional ecological security and ecological health. They are vital biotic components of desert ecosystems that maintain soil stability, fix carbon and nitrogen, influence the establishment of vascular plants, and serve as habitats for a large number of arthropods and microorganisms, as well as influencing soil hydrological processes. Changes in temperature and...

Summary SR protein‐specific kinases (SRPKs) uniquely with a spacer region are important splicing factors from yeast to human. However, little is known about their biological functions in filamentous fungi. Therefore, we characterized a SRPK called SRK1 in wheat scab fungus Fusarium graminearum . Our data showed that Srk1 is required for vegetative growth, sexual reproduction and plant infection, and plays critical roles in pre...

Summary The Pmk1 and Mps1 MAP kinases are essential for appressorium formation and plant infection in Magnaporthe oryzae . However, their exact roles during invasive growth are not clear because pmk1 and mps1 mutants are defective in penetration. To further characterize their functions after penetration, in this study we expressed the Pseudomonas syringae effector HopAI known to inactivate plant MAP kinases in M. oryzae . Cons...

Summary Variation in the symbiotic function of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM fungi) has been demonstrated among distinct biotic and abiotic interactions. However, there is little knowledge on how local temperature conditions influence the functional divergence of AM symbionts in alpine ecosystems. Here, we conduct a reciprocal inoculation experiment to explore the three‐way interactions among plants, AM fungal inoculum and...

Low oxygen and temperature pose key physiological challenges for endotherms living on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau ( QTP ). Molecular adaptations to high‐altitude living have been detected in the genomes of Tibetans, their domesticated animals and a few wild species, but the contribution of transcriptional variation to altitudinal adaptation remains to be determined. Here we studied a top QTP predator, the saker falcon, and ana...

Summary Appressorium formation plays a critical role in Magnaporthe oryzae . Mst50 is an adapter protein of the Mst11‐Mst7‐Pmk1 cascade that is essential for appressorium formation. To further characterize its functions, affinity purification was used to identify Mst50‐interacting proteins (MIPs) in this study. Two of the MIPs are Mst11 and Mst7 that are known to interact with Mst50 for Pmk1 activation. Surprisingly, two other...

Summary In Magnaporthe oryzae , the Mst11‐Mst7‐Pmk1 MAP kinase pathway is essential for appressorium formation and invasive growth. To determine their roles in Pmk1 activation and plant infection, we characterized the two thioredoxin genes, TRX1 and TRX2 , in M. oryzae . Whereas the Δ trx1 mutants had no detectable phenotypes, deletion of TRX2 caused pleiotropic defects in growth, conidiation, light sensing, responses to stres...

Summary Various surface signals are recognized by M agnaporthe oryzae to activate the P mk1 MAP kinase that is essential for appressorium formation and invasive growth. One of upstream sensors of the P mk1 pathway is the MoM sb2 signalling mucin. However, the activation of MoM sb2 and its relationship with other sensors is not clear. In this study, we showed that the cleavage and transmembrane domains are essential for MoM sb2...

The potential role of surface soil moisture ( SSM ) in improving the simulation of interannual East Asian summer precipitation is investigated using a coupled land‐atmosphere climate model, the Community Atmosphere Model version 3 ( CAM3 ). Forced by specified observational sea surface temperature ( SST ), two ensemble simulations for 22 boreal‐summer seasons (1979–2000) are conducted, one with interannually varying SSM ( SSM...