The Congo Basin and its contiguous forests harbor globally significant carbon stocks, estimated at 65 gigatons of C (GtC) above and belowground. Despite rising temperatures and intensifying droughts, they have remained a carbon sink, albeit weak: 0.26–0.50 GtC yr. −1 carbon uptake since 1980. However, these forests' carbon stocks and fluxes, including gross primary productivity, respiration, net primary productivity, and river...

The rapid climatic fluctuations and geographical factors during the Quaternary glacial period, particularly in the Pleistocene epoch, play a pivotal role in shaping intraspecific genetic diversity. We conducted an investigation into the genetic structure and speciation mechanisms of a small mammal species, Asiatic Short‐Tailed Shrew ( Blarinella quadraticauda ), which is mainly distributed in the mountains surrounding the Sich...

The drying‐rewetting of soil can increase the release of greenhouse gases over a short time period and is one of the key pathways for greenhouse gas emissions in many terrestrial ecosystems, particularly in drylands. The mechanisms underlying this pulse of greenhouse gas emissions remain nearly unknown. Here, we conducted simulated soil rewetting experiments using typical cover of dryland soils (bareland, cyanobacteria/lichen‐...

Aim Dispersal of plant propagules and their genes is crucial for plant responses to landscape heterogeneities, yet the mechanisms behind this dispersal remain unclear. Ficus species depend on wind‐borne fig wasps for pollination, but research on airflow effects on Ficus genetic structure has produced conflicting results. Our study aims to clarify the role of wind in shaping the genetic structure of such plants with wind‐borne...

Current and near future climate policy will fundamentally influence the integrity of ecological systems. The Neotropics is a region where biodiversity is notably high and precipitation regimes largely determine the ecology of most organisms. We modeled possible changes in the severity of seasonal aridity by 2100 throughout the Neotropics and used birds to illustrate the implications of contrasting climate scenarios for the reg...

Summary In wheat head blight fungus Fusarium graminearum , A‐to‐I RNA editing occurs specifically during sexual reproduction. Among the genes with premature stop codons (PSCs) that require RNA editing to encode full‐length proteins, FgBUD14 also had alternative splicing events in perithecia. In this study, we characterized the functions of FgBUD14 and its post‐transcriptional modifications during sexual reproduction. The Fgbud...

Climate‐induced nonlinearity in biological variability and non‐stationary relationships with physical drivers are crucial to understand responses of marine organisms to climate variability. These phenomena have raised concerns in the northeastern North Pacific, but are out of the spotlight in the northwestern North Pacific in spite of potential implications for this productive system under increased climate variability. Pelagi...

Past studies presented evidence that deforestation may affect the precipitation seasonality in southern Amazon. This study uses daily rainfall data from Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission 3B42 product and a recent yearly 1‐km land use dataset to evaluate the quantitative effects of deforestation on the onset, demise and length of the rainy season in southern Amazon for a period of 15 years (1998–2012). Additionally, we use...

The dynamics of populations and their divergence over time have shaped current levels of biodiversity and in the case of the “sky islands” of mountainous southwest (SW) China have resulted in an area of exceptional botanical diversity. Ficus tikoua is a prostrate fig tree subendemic to the area that displays unique intraspecific diversity, producing figs typical of different pollination modes in different parts of its range. B...

Intermediate circulation is one of the crucial controls of thermohaline changes in seawater. Due to the lack of data for some of the more significant indicators, there has been little research into past intermediate waters in the South China Sea (SCS). In particular, little is known of the thermohaline properties of intermediate water. Here, we present paired Mg/Ca and δ 18 O data for the planktonic foraminifera Globorotalia i...

In a recent article, Diem (2012) examined the impact of the North Atlantic Subtropical High ( NASH ) and atmospheric moistening on summer rainfall variability in the Atlanta, Georgia region. In his paper, he indicated that the results concerning the variability of the NASH western ridge discussed in Li et al . (2011) are incorrect. We present new evidence here to show that the comments by Diem (2012) are unjustified; the main...

Wu, H.‐C., Lin, R.‐C., Hung, H.‐Y., Yeh, C.‐F., Chu, J.‐H., Yang, X.‐J., Yao, C.‐J., Zou, F.‐S., Yao, C.‐T., Li, S.‐H. & Lei, F.‐M. (2011). Molecular and morphological evidences reveal a cryptic species in the Vinaceous Rosefinch Carpodacus vinaceus (Fringillidae; Aves). — Zoologica Scripta, 40 , 468–478. The Vinaceous Rosefinch ( Carpodacus vinaceus ) is endemic in East Asia with two recognized subspecies – C. v. vinaceus , d...