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This study investigates the relative importance of tropical Indian Ocean warming (IOW) and equatorial central to eastern Pacific cooling (EPC) in sustaining an anomalous Western North Pacific anticyclone (WNPAC) during the transition from an El Niño in the preceding winter to a La Niña in the subsequent summer through a suite of numerical experiments. The numerical results indicate that the WNPAC is maintained by a combined effect of IOW and EPC during the La Niña developing years. The contribution of IOW in maintaining the WNPAC sustains from spring to early summer, but appears to weaken after that as IOW decays. The role of IOW is via an eastward-propagating Kelvin wave induced Ekman divergence mechanism. The decay of IOW is because of reduction in downward solar radiation associated with above normal precipitation in situ. As the cooling develops over central to eastern Pacific from spring to summer, EPC starts to contribute to the maintenance of the WNPAC during summer through stimulating a Rossby wave response to its northwest. In this study, we have identified that the cooling over the central to eastern Pacific plays an important role in sustaining the WNPAC during La Niña developing summers. This finding may help improve the prediction of the East Asian summer monsoon, which is closely associated with the WNPAC.

Background The filamentous temperature-sensitive H protease ( ftsH ) gene family belongs to the ATP-dependent zinc metalloproteins, and ftsH genes play critical roles in plant chloroplast development and photosynthesis. Results In this study, we performed genome-wide identification and a systematic analysis of soybean ftsH genes. A total of 18 GmftsH genes were identified. The subcellular localization was predicted to be mainly in cell membranes and chloroplasts, and the gene structures, conserved motifs, evolutionary relationships, and expression patterns were comprehensively analyzed. Phylogenetic analysis of the ftsH gene family from soybean and various other species revealed six distinct clades, all of which showed a close relationship to Arabidopsis thaliana . The members of the GmftsH gene family were distributed on 13 soybean chromosomes, with intron numbers ranging from 3 to 15, 13 pairs of repetitive segment. The covariance between these genes and related genes in different species of Oryza sativa , Zea mays , and Arabidopsis thaliana was further investigated. The transcript expression data revealed that the genes of this family showed different expression patterns in three parts, the root, stem, and leaf, and most of the genes were highly expressed in the leaves of the soybean plants. Fluorescence-based real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) showed that the expression level of GmftsH genes varied under different stress treatments. Specifically, the genes within this family exhibited various induction levels in response to stress conditions of 4℃, 20% PEG-6000, and 100 mmol/L NaCl. These findings suggest that the GmftsH gene family may play a crucial role in the abiotic stress response in soybeans. It was also found that the GmftsH7 gene was localized on the cell membrane, and its expression was significantly upregulated under 4 ℃ treatment. In summary, by conducting a genome-wide analysis of the GmftsH gene family, a strong theoretical basis is established for future studies on the functionality of GmftsH genes. Conclusions This research can potentially serve as a guide for enhancing the stress tolerance characteristics of soybean.

In an assessment of 29 global climate models (GCMs), Part I of this study identified biases in boreal winter MJO teleconnections in anomalous 500-hPa geopotential height over the Pacific–North America (PNA) region that are common to many models: an eastward shift, a longer persistence, and a larger amplitude. In Part II, we explore the relationships of the teleconnection metrics developed in Part I with several existing and newly developed MJO and basic state (the mean subtropical westerly jet) metrics. The MJO and basic state diagnostics indicate that the MJO is generally weaker and less coherent and propagates faster in models compared to observations. The mean subtropical jet also exhibits notable biases such as too strong amplitude, excessive eastward extension, or southward shift. The following relationships are found to be robust among the models: 1) models with a faster MJO propagation tend to produce weaker teleconnections; 2) models with a less coherent eastward MJO propagation tend to simulate more persistent MJO teleconnections; 3) models with a stronger westerly jet produce stronger and eastward shifted MJO teleconnections; 4) models with an eastward extended jet produce an eastward shift in MJO teleconnections; and 5) models with a southward shifted jet produce stronger MJO teleconnections. The results are supported by linear baroclinic model experiments. Our results suggest that the larger amplitude and eastward shift biases in GCM MJO teleconnections can be attributed to the biases in the westerly jet, and that the longer persistence bias is likely due to the lack of coherent eastward MJO propagation.

Background Soybean is one of the most important oil crops in the world, and its protein and fat are the primary sources of edible oil and vegetable protein. The effective components in soybean protein and fat have positive effects on improving human immunity, anti-tumor, and regulating blood lipids and metabolism. Therefore, increasing the contents of protein and fat in soybeans is essential for improving the quality of soybeans. Results This study selected 292 soybean lines from different regions as experimental materials, based on SLAF-seq sequencing technology, and performed genome-wide association study (GWAS) on the phenotype data from 2019–2021 Planted at the experimental base of Jilin Agricultural University, such as the contents of protein and fat of soybeans. Through the GLM model and MLM model, four SNP sites (Gm09_39012959, Gm12_35492373, Gm16_9297124, and Gm20_24678362) that were significantly related to soybean fat content were associated for three consecutive years, and two SNP sites (Gm09_39012959 and Gm20_24678362) that were significantly related to soybean protein content were associated. By the annotation and enrichment of genes within the 100 Kb region of SNP loci flanking, two genes ( Glyma.09G158100 and Glyma.09G158200) related to soybean protein synthesis and one gene ( Glyma.12G180200 ) related to lipid metabolism were selected. By the preliminary verification of expression levels of genes with qPCR, it is found that during the periods of R6 and R7 of the accumulation of soybean protein and fat, Glyma.09G158100 and Glyma.09G158200 are positive regulatory genes that promote protein synthesis and accumulation, while Glyma.12G180200 is the negative regulatory gene that inhibits fat accumulation. Conclusions These results lay the basis for further verifying the gene function and studying the molecular mechanisms regulating the accumulation of protein and fat in soybean seeds.

Background and aims: Xuanfei Baidu decoction (XFBD), a traditional Chinese medicine formulation, was designed and successfully applied for COVID-19 disease treatment in China, while the mechanism is still not clear. Methods: To evaluate the protective effect of XFBD on immunosuppression in cyclophosphamide (CY)-treated mice, XFBD was orally administrated, the body weight was measured, and the immune organ index was calculated. HE staining was performed to analyze the pathological structures of the liver, spleen, and thymus. The levels of cytokines and immunoglobulin in the serum and spleen were evaluated by ELISA and RT-PCR. Splenic lymphocytes were isolated, and LPS-stimulated cell proliferation and the number of CD4 + and CD8 + T lymphocytes were evaluated. Results: XFBD significantly suppressed body weight loss and increased the indices of spleen and thymus. The pathological alteration was much improved after XFBD administration. The reductions of TNF-α, IFN-γ, IgG, and IgM levels in serum and IL-2, IL-4, and IL-6 expressions in the spleen were all significantly alleviated by XFBD. Splenic lymphocyte proliferation in response to LPS was further enhanced after treatment with XFBD. The reduction of CD4 + and CD8 + T lymphocytes in CY-treated mice was also highly increased in XFBD groups. Conclusion: Our findings suggested that XFBD played a crucial role in protection against immunosuppression in CY-treated mice and could be a potential candidate for immune modification and therapy.

Flood disasters are one of the most serious meteorological disasters in China. With the rapid development of information technology, individual monitoring tools could not meet the need for flood disaster monitoring. Therefore, a new integrated air-space-ground method, based on combined satellite remote sensing, unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing and field measurement technology, has been proposed to monitor and assess flood disasters caused by a dam failure in Poyang County, Jiangxi Province. In this paper, based on an air-space-ground investigation system, the general flooded areas, severely affected areas, and more severely affected areas were 53.18 km2, 12.61 km2 and 6.98 km2, respectively. The size of the dam break gap was about 65 m and 34.7 m on 22 and 23 June. The assessment precision was better than 98%, and the root mean square error (RMSE) was 0.86 m. The method could meet the needs for flood disaster information at different spatiotemporal scales, such as macro scale, medium scale and local small scale. The integrated monitoring of flood disasters was carried out to provide the whole process and all-round information on flood evolution dynamics, the disaster development process for flood disaster monitoring and emergency assessment, and holographic information for emergency rescue and disaster reduction, as well as to meet the need for different temporal and spatial scales of information in the process of disaster emergencies.

With object detection technology, real-time detection of dense scenes has become an important application requirement in various industries, which is of great significance for improving production efficiency and ensuring public safety. However, the current mainstream target detection algorithms have problems such as insufficient accuracy or inability to achieve real-time detection when detecting dense scenes, and to address this problem this paper improves the YOLOv7 model using attention mechanisms that can enhance critical information. Based on the original YOLOv7 network model, part of the traditional convolutional layers are replaced with the standard convolution combined with the attention mechanism. After comparing the optimization results of three different attention mechanisms, CBAM, CA, and SimAM, the YOLOv7B-CBAM model is proposed, which effectively improves the accuracy of object detection in dense scenes. The results on VOC datasets show that the YOLOv7B-CBAM model has the highest accuracy, reaching 87.8%, 1.5% higher than that of the original model, and outperforms the original model as well as other models with improved attention mechanisms in the subsequent results of two other different dense scene practical application scenarios. This model can be applied to public safety detection, agricultural detection, and other fields, saving labor costs, improving public health, reducing the spread and loss of plant diseases, and realizing high-precision, real-time target detection.

Fruit shape is a commercially important trait in litchi, yet the genetic mechanisms that regulate its development remain largely unresolved. OVATE Family Proteins (OFPs) are plant-specific transcriptional regulators known to play key roles in fruit morphology, organ growth, and overall plant development. In this study, we identified 14 OFP genes distributed across eight chromosomes in the litchi genome. Phylogenetic reconstruction and conserved motif analyses demonstrated that all LcOFPs contain the characteristic OVATE domain and can be grouped into three subfamilies based on motif composition. Promoter cis -element analysis further suggested that LcOFPs may respond to diverse phytohormone signals and abiotic stresses, indicating their involvement in multiple regulatory pathways. Integrated RNA-seq and RT-qPCR analyses revealed that LcOFP3 , LcOFP6 , LcOFP10 , LcOFP13 , and LcOFP14 show tissue-specific expression patterns and dynamic transcriptional changes during fruit development in two cultivars with contrasting fruit sizes. Heterologous overexpression of LcOFP3 significantly modified fruit morphology in tomato. These findings clarify the genetic mechanisms through which OFP genes regulate fruit shape in litchi and highlight promising genetic targets for future litchi breeding and improvement.

While mutagenesis breeding has been widely applied in major crops, its implementation in tropical horticultural species remains limited. In this study, we established a pingyangmycin-induced mutagenesis system using in vitro –cultured embryogenic callus of litchi. Treatment with gradient concentrations of pingyangmycin (0–40 mg/L) revealed an inverse relationship between chemical dosage and cell viability, with somatic embryogenesis completely inhibited at 40 mg/L. Whole-genome resequencing of treated callus identified 307,629 high quality somatic mutations (255,721 SNVs and 51,908 indels), with the 20 mg/L treatment group exhibiting the highest number of mutations. Further resequencing of 40 regenerated mutant lines from the cultivars ‘Feizixiao’ and ‘Lingnan15’ revealed 1,703,663 and 1,281,489 somatic variants, respectively, corresponding to mutation frequencies of 1.8×10 -4 per site and 1.4×10 -4 per site, both markedly exceeding typical EMS-induced rates in crops. Transition mutations predominated, accounting for 77% of total single-nucleotide substitutions. Short indels (<3 bp) comprised over 70% of all insertion–deletion events, indicating pingyangmycin’s propensity to induce base substitutions and small indels via oxidative and double-strand break repair pathways. The regenerated mutant plants exhibited substantial leaf morphological variation, confirming effective mutagenic diversification. Collectively, this study provides the first evidence of pingyangmycin’s mutagenic efficacy in litchi, establishes a reliable system for mutant library construction, and delivers valuable genetic resources for functional genomics and molecular breeding applications.

The combination of organic fertilizers (OFs) and chemical fertilizers (CF) is a promising agricultural management strategy to improve soil fertility while mitigating N 2 O emissions in croplands. However, there is still lacking of in-depth understanding of the effects of different OF and CF blends on N 2 O emissions and the underlying drivers. To this end, we conducted a short-term soil incubation to address the influences of partial OF substitutions for CF, i.e., 40% substitution of compost (CP), Yak dung (YD), Qingke straw (QS), and sheep dung (SD) on the processes of nitrification and denitrification in sandy loam soils in the Lhasa Valley. We found that CP, QS, and SD reduced cumulative N 2 O emissions by 53.43%, 25.96% and 16.64%, respectively compared to pure chemical fertilizer (N), except YD caused a significant higher in total N 2 O emissions. Fertilization treatments primarily regulate potential N 2 O emissions by affecting denitrification processes. While ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA amoA ) could be the main driver of nitrification, and nirS abundance explained most of the cumulative N 2 O emissions. In addition, NO 3 − –N tends to accumulate in the farmland soils, indicating an increase in the risk of leaching and nutrient loss. Overall, soil N 2 O emission reduction was favored by applying partial organic fertilizer substitution especially after through compost. Co-composting of animal manure and crop residue has more impressive potential for mitigating farmland N 2 O emissions.