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\"Atlas of Woody Plants in China Distribution and Climate documents the spatially-explicit county-level distribution of all 11,405 woody plants in China, together with life form information for most species. It also provides climate information for each species, with the county-level average and range of 12 climatic indices and of vegetation net primary productivity\"--Back cover.

Under the background of rapid development of science and technology and much attention in the field of robotics, the Vex robot is of great significance in the field of education, but there are difficulties in control. Given that the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) algorithm is widely used in the control field and there are achievements and shortcomings in related research, this paper discusses in depth its application in the control of VEX robots, including the analysis of the mathematical principles of the PID algorithm, the specific operation steps in the practice of programming VEX robots, as well as the parameter optimization method through regression analysis. The results of the study show that this paper successfully analyzes the mathematical principles of the PID algorithm, has specific and effective steps in practice, and improves the machine rotational control performance through regression analysis. This research provides an important theoretical and practical basis for optimizing the application of the PID algorithm in VEX robots, which plays an important role in robot control, and the algorithm also has the potential to be applied and expanded in other operating robots.

Protected areas (PAs) play a pivotal role in maintaining viable populations of species and minimizing their habitat loss. Globally, there are currently over 200,000 PAs that cover approximately 15% of land area. The post-2020 global biodiversity framework aims to expand this coverage to 30% by 2030. However, focusing only on the percentage coverage of PAs without evaluating their effectiveness may fail to achieve conservation goals. Here, we use a multidimensional approach incorporating species, climate and anthropogenic vulnerabilities to assess the threat levels in over 2500 PAs in China. We identify nearly 10% of PAs as the most threatened PAs in China and about one-fifth PAs as hotspots of climate and anthropogenic vulnerabilities. We also find high climate instability in species vulnerability hotspots, suggesting an elevated likelihood of species’ extirpation therein. Our framework could be useful in assessing resiliency of global protected lands and also in selecting near optimal areas for their future expansion. Proected areas (PA) expansion is a major conservation goal, but its effectiveness is debated. Here, the authors propose a multi-dimensional framework to assess PA vulnerability and select areas suitable for expansion, demonstrating it for 2572 PAs in China under a low-emission scenario.

Forest canopy height is an important indicator of forest biomass, species diversity, and other ecosystem functions; however, the climatic determinants that underlie its global patterns have not been fully explored. Using satellite LiDAR-derived forest canopy heights and field measurements of the world's giant trees, combined with climate indices, we evaluated the global patterns and determinants of forest canopy height. The mean canopy height was highest in tropical regions, but tall forests (>50 m) occur at various latitudes. Water availability, quantified by the difference between annual precipitation and annual potential evapotranspiration (P-PET), was the best predictor of global forest canopy height, which supports the hydraulic limitation hypothesis. However, in striking contrast with previous studies, the canopy height exhibited a hump-shaped curve along a gradient of P-PET: it initially increased, then peaked at approximately 680 mm of P-PET, and finally declined, which suggests that excessive water supply negatively affects the canopy height. This trend held true across continents and forest types, and it was also validated using forest inventory data from China and the United States. Our findings provide new insights into the climatic controls of the world's giant trees and have important implications for forest management and improvement of forest growth models.

Despite evidence from experimental grasslands that plant diversity increases biomass production and soil organic carbon (SOC) storage, it remains unclear whether this is true in natural ecosystems, especially under climatic variations and human disturbances. Based on field observations from 6,098 forest, shrubland, and grassland sites across China and predictions from an integrative model combining multiple theories, we systematically examined the direct effects of climate, soils, and human impacts on SOC storage versus the indirect effects mediated by species richness (SR), aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP), and belowground biomass (BB). We found that favorable climates (high temperature and precipitation) had a consistent negative effect on SOC storage in forests and shrublands, but not in grasslands. Climate favorability, particularly high precipitation, was associated with both higher SR and higher BB, which had consistent positive effects on SOC storage, thus offsetting the direct negative effect of favorable climate on SOC. The indirect effects of climate on SOC storage depended on the relationships of SR with ANPP and BB, which were consistently positive in all biome types. In addition, human disturbance and soil pH had both direct and indirect effects on SOC storage, with the indirect effects mediated by changes in SR, ANPP, and BB. High soil pH had a consistently negative effect on SOC storage. Our findings have important implications for improving global carbon cycling models and ecosystem management: Maintaining high levels of diversity can enhance soil carbon sequestration and help sustain the benefits of plant diversity and productivity.

The means through which microbes and plants contribute to soil organic carbon (SOC) accumulation remain elusive due to challenges in disentangling the complex components of SOC. Here we use amino sugars and lignin phenols as tracers for microbial necromass and plant lignin components, respectively, and investigate their distribution in the surface soils across Mongolian grasslands in comparison with published data for other grassland soils of the world. While lignin phenols decrease, amino sugars increase with SOC contents in all examined grassland soils, providing continental-scale evidence for the key role of microbial necromass in SOC accumulation. Moreover, in contrast to clay’s control on amino sugar accumulation in fine-textured soils, aridity plays a central role in amino sugar accrual and lignin decomposition in the coarse-textured Mongolian soils. Hence, aridity shifts may have differential impacts on microbial-mediated SOC accumulation in grassland soils of varied textures. It remains unclear how microbes and plants contribute to soil organic carbon (SOC) accrual. Here, using biomarkers, the authors show that microbial necromass and plant-derived lignin components have divergent accumulation mechanisms and that microbial necromass plays a key role in SOC accumulation.

What determines large-scale patterns of species richness remains one of the most controversial issues in ecology. Using the distribution maps of 11 405 woody species in China, we compared the effects of habitat heterogeneity, human activities and different aspects of climate, particularly environmental energy, water–energy dynamics and winter frost, and explored how biogeographic affinities (tropical versus temperate) influence richness–climate relationships. We found that the species richness of trees, shrubs, lianas and all woody plants strongly correlated with each other, and more strongly correlated with the species richness of tropical affinity than with that of temperate affinity. The mean temperature of the coldest quarter was the strongest predictor of species richness, and its explanatory power for species richness was significantly higher for tropical affinity than for temperate affinity. These results suggest that the patterns of woody species richness mainly result from the increasing intensity of frost filtering for tropical species from the equator/lowlands towards the poles/highlands, and hence support the freezing-tolerance hypothesis. A model based on these results was developed, which explained 76–85% of species richness variation in China, and reasonably predicted the species richness of woody plants in North America and the Northern Hemisphere.

Aim: Is high diversity in tropical and subtropical mountains due to topographical complexity alone or a combination of topography and temperature seasonality? Here, we aim to assess the contribution of these two factors on Rhododendron diversity in China. Specifically, we evaluate how low temperature seasonality in subtropical China jointly with heterogeneous environment accounts for increased species diversity across montane landscapes relative to those of the more seasonal temperate zone in north China. Location: China. Methods: We compiled distributional data for all Rhododendron species in China and then estimated the species richness patterns of rare versus common species, and of shrubs versus trees at spatial resolutions of 50 × 50 km. Bivariate regressions were performed to evaluate the effects of environmental variables on species richness followed by stepwise regression to select the best set of predictors. Results: The variables of habitat heterogeneity and climate seasonality were consistently the strongest predictors of species richness for all species groups, while the contribution of water and energy variables was proportionately much lower. Winter coldness had very low predictive power, which indicated that unlike other woody plants, the northward dispersal of Rhododendron is not limited by cold winter temperature. Main conclusions: High Rhododendron diversity in south-west China appears to be influenced jointly by the climatic gradients induced by topographical complexity and temperature seasonality as suggested by Janzen's hypothesis. The increased topographical complexity in combination with low temperature seasonality in south-west China might have promoted species accumulation by offering more niche space, preventing extinction and providing increased opportunities for allopatric speciation. While our findings strongly indicate the effect of habitat heterogeneity on species diversity, they also suggest the role of seasonal uniformity of temperature for increased diversity towards the tropics. The effect of seasonality may, however, be more pronounced in plants because of their limited ability to use behaviour to avoid environmental influences.

The effects of drought, salinity, and combined stress on ROS and ROS metabolic physiology and transcriptomics in sweet sorghum seedling leaves were evaluated. The results showed that drought stress had little effect on photosynthesis, while the SOD activity, CAT activity, and the expression of their related genes were elevated in leaves, but no excessive accumulation of O 2 - , H 2 O 2 , or -OH was observed. Under salinity stress, photosynthesis was inhibited, the O 2 - , H 2 O 2 and -OH contents increased significantly, and the SOD, POD, CAT activities and the expression of their related genes in leaves were elevated. Under combined stress, photosynthesis was significantly inhibited, the highest accumulation of O 2 - , H 2 O 2 and -OH contents occurred, and the SOD and POD activities and the expression of related genes in leaves were significantly increased, but the CAT was significantly decreased. These results collectively indicate that oxidative damage to sweet sorghum seedling leaves was higher with combined stress than with either drought or salinity stress alone. Under combined stress the SOD and POD activities were increased, but the CAT activity in the AsA-GSH cycle was severely reduced, demonstrating that antioxidant mechanisms in seedlings did not play a normal protective role, leaving the plants severely damaged by oxidative stress. Abbreviations: AsA: Ascorbic acid; APX: Ascorbate peroxidase; CAT: Catalase; Chl a: Chlorophyll a; Chl b: Chlorophyll b; Ci: Intercellular CO2 concentration; DHAR: Dehydroascorbate reductase; DEGs: Differentially expressed genes; DW: Dry weight; ETR: Photosynthetic electron transport rate; FW: Fresh weight; Fv/Fm: Original light energy conversion efficiency; GPX: Glutathione peroxidase; GR: Glutathione reductase; Gs: Stomatal conductance; GSH: Oxidized glutathione; H2O2: Hydrogen peroxide; MDA: Malondialdehyde; MDHAR: Monodehydroascorbate reductase; O2-: Superoxide anion; PCA: Principal component analysis; PCD: Programed cell death; PEG-6000: Polyethylene glycol 6000; POD: Peroxidase; Pn: Photosynthetic rate; Pro: Proline; qRT-PCR: Quantitative real-time PCR; RNA-seq: RNA Sequencing; ROS: Reactive oxygen species; RWC: Relative water content; RMP: Relative membrane permeability; SOD: Superoxide dismutase; SW: Saturation weight; Tr: Transpiration rate; ΦPSII: Actual photochemical efficiency; -OH: Hydroxyl radical

Significance The Mongolian Plateau, composed mainly of Inner Mongolia in China and the Republic of Mongolia, has been experiencing remarkable lake shrinkage during the recent decades because of intensive human activities and climate changes. This study provides a comprehensive satellite-based evaluation of lake shrinkage across the plateau, and finds a greater decreasing rate of the number of lakes in Inner Mongolia than in Mongolia (34.0% vs. 17.6%) between the late 1980s and 2010, due mainly to an unsustainable mining boom and agricultural irrigation in the former. Disastrous damages to the natural systems are threatening the livelihood of local people, and we thus call for an urgent action to prevent further deterioration. Lakes are widely distributed on the Mongolian Plateau and, as critical water sources, have sustained Mongolian pastures for hundreds of years. However, the plateau has experienced significant lake shrinkage and grassland degradation during the past several decades. To quantify the changes in all of the lakes on the plateau and the associated driving factors, we performed a satellite-based survey using multitemporal Landsat images from the 1970s to 2000s, combined with ground-based censuses. Our results document a rapid loss of lakes on the plateau in the past decades: the number of lakes with a water surface area >1 km ² decreased from 785 in the late 1980s to 577 in 2010, with a greater rate of decrease (34.0%) in Inner Mongolia of China than in Mongolia (17.6%). This decrease has been particularly pronounced since the late 1990s in Inner Mongolia and the number of lakes >10 km ² has declined by 30.0%. The statistical analyses suggested that in Mongolia precipitation was the dominant driver for the lake changes, and in Inner Mongolia coal mining was most important in its grassland area and irrigation was the leading factor in its cultivated area. The deterioration of lakes is expected to continue in the following decades not only because of changing climate but also increasing exploitation of underground mineral and groundwater resources on the plateau. To protect grasslands and the indigenous nomads, effective action is urgently required to save these valuable lakes from further deterioration.