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Spatial variability of throughfall ( i.e. the non-uniform characteristics of throughfall at different canopy positions) and its temporal persistence ( i.e. time stability) are related to the quantity and efficiency of soil moisture replenishment, and affect plant competition and community succession dynamics by affecting resource availability. We carried out a meta-analysis with 554 papers (from 2000 to 2022) retrieved from Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) based on keyword search, quantified and compared the amount, spatial heterogeneity, and temporal stability characteristics of penetrating rain in different climate zones and plant functional types. Our results that throughfall proportion was lower in arid regions (72.0%±13.6%) than humid (75.1%±9.3%) and semi-humid areas (79.9%±10.4%). Cold climates had lower values (74.1%±14.6%) than temperate (74.2%±7.5%) and tropical climates (80.9%±14.6%). Shrubs (68.9%±14.9%) generally had lower throughfall proportion than trees (76.7%±9.1%). Broad-leaved trees (75.2%±11.1%) and conifers (75.1%±9.9%) showed similar throughfall proportions, as did evergreen (76.7%±10.0%) and deciduous species (74.7%±11.9%). Additionally, spatial variability (coefficient of variation) did not significantly differ across rainfall zones, temperature zones, or vegetation types. The spatial distribution of throughfall was relatively stable. Canopy structure was the dominant factor affecting temporal stability of throughfall. However, there was a lack of comparison between typical geographic units ( i.e. spatial units with basically consistent geographical environmental conditions) at various temporal scales. Future research should expand upwards to the summary of global spatial scale rules and downwards to the analysis of process based temporal scale mechanisms, to depict the dynamic distribution of penetrating rain and unify observation standards to enhance comparability of different studies, in order to efficiently promote research on canopy penetrating rain and provide ecological and hydrological basis for protecting nature, managing artificial activities, and restoring degraded ecosystems.

Mining causes severe damage to soil ecosystems. Vegetation restoration in abandoned mine areas is an inevitable requirement for sustainable development. Soil microbes, as the most active component of soil organic matter, play a crucial role in the transformation of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other elements. They are often used as indicators to assess the extent of vegetation restoration in ecologically fragile areas. However, the impacts of vegetation restoration on soil microbial community structure in mining areas at the global scale remains largely unknown. Based on 310 paired observations from 44 papers, we employed the meta-analysis approach to examine the influence of vegetation restoration on soil microbial abundance and biomass in mining area. The results indicated that vegetation restoration significantly promotes soil microbial biomass in mining areas. In comparison to bare soil, vegetation restoration leads to a significant 95.1% increase in soil microbial biomass carbon and a 87.8% increase in soil microbial biomass nitrogen. The abundance of soil bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes are significantly increased by 1005.4%, 472.4%, and 177.7%, respectively. Among various vegetation restoration types, the exclusive plan-ting of trees exhibits the most pronounced promotion effect on soil microbial biomass and population, which results in a significant increase of 540.3% in soil fungi and 104.5% in actinomycetes, along with a respective enhancement of 110.3% and 106.4% in microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen. Model selection results revealed that soil satura-ted water content and vegetation restoration history contribute most significantly to the abundance of soil bacteria and fungi. Soil available nitrogen has the most significant impact on the abundance of actinomycetes and microbial biomass carbon, while soil available phosphorus emerges as a crucial factor affecting microbial biomass nitrogen. This research could contribute to understanding the relationship between vegetation restoration and the structure of soil microbial communities in mining areas, and providing scientific support for determining appropriate vegetation restoration types in mining areas.

High intensity grazing is considered as an important cause of grassland degradation. Numerous studies have explored effects of grazing activities on grassland ecosystems. Nevertheless, the research regarding grazing activity itself, especially the quantification methods and gradient division of grazing pressure, is relatively insufficient. Based on a total of 141 Chinese and English papers containing keywords such as 'grazing pressure', 'grazing intensity', and giving specific quantification methods and classification standards, we sorted out the definition, quantification methods, and grading standards of grazing pressure. The results showed that the definition of grazing pressure in current studies could be classified into two categories: considering the number of livestock carried in the current grassland ecosystem only from the perspective of the amount of grazing livestock; or considering the impacts or consequences on grassland ecosystems. Small-scale manipulative experiments mainly quantified and divided gra-zing pressure by controlling the number of livestock, grazing duration, grazing area, etc . Ecosystem responses to grazing activities were also converted by the above indicators, while the large-scale data spatialization method only considered number of livestock per unit area. The method of remote sensing inversion focused on ecosystem responses, that is, the impacts of grazing activities on grasslands, and it was difficult to separate the role of climatic factors. The quantitative standards of grazing pressure in different grassland types were quite different, even in the same grassland type, and such difference was directly related to grassland productivity.

In order to clarify the influence of livestock grazing managements on C:N:P stoichiometry of grassland ecosystem and improve grassland management ability at global scale, 83 Chinese and English papers were selected for meta-analysis in this study. We explored the effects of grazing herbivore assemblage (sheep alone, cattle alone, and mixed cattle and sheep) and grazing intensity (light grazing, moderate grazing and heavy grazing) on leaf, litter, root and soil C, N and P stoichiometry of grassland ecosystems. The results showed that grazing significantly decreased C content, C/N and C/P, and increased N, P content and N/P in leaf and litter. C content, N content, C/P and N/P were significantly reduced, and P content and C/N were increased in root and soil. Leaf and litter stoichiometry were more sensitive to cattle and sheep grazing alone, while root and soil stoichiometry were more sensitive to mixed grazing. Heavy grazing had a greater impact on the stoichiometry of grassland ecosystems. Grazing reduced soil N content and increased P content, indicating that grazing had different pathways of influence on grassland N and P content. Further research on the mechanisms of N and P content changes in response to unbalanced grazing activities and the incorporation of the effects of grazing herbivore assemblage and intensity into models for predicting and managing grassland ecosystems could effectively improve grassland ecosystem management.

Landscape structure and spatial pattern are the core issues in landscape ecology. The application of graph theory provides a research framework for landscape pattern analysis. Landscape graph based on graph theory is gradually applied to the connectivity modeling of biodiversity conservation and decision support of landscape planning. The representation, analysis and application of landscape graph have become a hot topic in conservation biology and landscape ecology. In this review, we first introduced the graph theory basis of landscape map. Based on the Scopus database, 257 published journal papers with the words "landscape graph", "connectivity" and "network" in titles, abstracts, and keywords from 1993 to 2019 were retrieved. We analyzed the research progress and development trend of this field from the aspects of annual published papers, journal sources, research areas, research institutions and landscape types involved. The results showed that before 2017, the number of journal papers published showed an overall increasing trend, and after 2017, the annual number of published papers decreased year by year. The main research forces were concentrated in United States, France, Canada, and China, contributing to 86.8% of the total published papers. Most of the research results were published in "Landscape Ecology", "Landscape and Urban Planning", and "Biological Conservation". In the research content, the representation of landscape graph mainly included the definition of nodes, the measurement of edges and the simulation of landscape. The analysis of landscape graph involved analysis index and landscape graph partitioning. This study mainly focused on the application of landscape graph in science and practice, including biodiversity conservation, landscape (ecological network) planning and management, the assessment of landscape impacts. Landscape graph based on graph theory influences conservation science and planning practitioners by helping understand landscape connectivity changes, animal behavior and habitat conservation. The impact of graph theory on conservation science and planning comes from the rich theoretical basis and mature research methods. Landscape graph based on graph theory provides a springboard for ecological understanding of landscape structure and pattern, and is an important tool for global researchers and practitioners.

The ecological process models are powerful tools for studying terrestrial ecosystem water and carbon cycle at present. However, there are many parameters for these models, and weather the reasonable values of these parameters were taken, have important impact on the models simulation results. In the past, the sensitivity and the optimization of model parameters were analyzed and discussed in many researches. But the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the optimal parameters is less concerned. In this paper, the BIOME-BGC model was used as an example. In the evergreen broad-leaved forest, deciduous broad-leaved forest and C3 grassland, the sensitive parameters of the model were selected by constructing the sensitivity judgment index with two experimental sites selected under each vegetation type. The objective function was constructed by using the simulated annealing algorithm combined with the flux data to obtain the monthly optimal values of the sensitive parameters at each site. Then we constructed the temporal heterogeneity judgment index, the spatial heterogeneity judgment index and the temporal and spatial heterogeneity judgment index to quantitatively analyze the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the optimal values of the model sensitive parameters. The results showed that the sensitivity of BIOME-BGC model parameters was different under different vegetation types, but the selected sensitive parameters were mostly consistent. The optimal values of the sensitive parameters of BIOME-BGC model mostly presented time-space heterogeneity to different degrees which varied with vegetation types. The sensitive parameters related to vegetation physiology and ecology had relatively little temporal and spatial heterogeneity while those related to environment and phenology had generally larger temporal and spatial heterogeneity. In addition, the temporal heterogeneity of the optimal values of the model sensitive parameters showed a significant linear correlation with the spatial heterogeneity under the three vegetation types. According to the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of the optimal values, the parameters of the BIOME-BGC model could be classified in order to adopt different parameter strategies in practical application. The conclusion could help to deeply understand the parameters and the optimal values of the ecological process models, and provide a way or reference for obtaining the reasonable values of parameters in models application.

Ecosystem service flow is the key point and difficulty of ecosystem services research, which is now at the initial stage and show a developing trend of quantity and spatialization. However, the term "ecosystem service flow" is ambiguous. In this paper, we presented two descriptions about the term, and two corresponding theories and methods: the transmission of a service from ecosystems to people and distributed ecosystem model, and the flow of benefits accruing to people as generated by stocks of ecosystem structure and grey/black box theory. Then the latest researches related to the two descriptions were listed, and their merit and demerit were summarized. Finally, we pointed out several directions for future research in ecosystem service flow. Especially, the use of newest space technology and information technology (such as big data) and comprehensive understanding of ecosystem services (such as taking urban ecosystem services flow and abiotic flow into account) should be stressed in the future research.

As a kind of globally widely distributed soil microorganism, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form the symbiosis with the majority of land plants, which is important for plant nutrition and ecosystem functioning. Few vascular species are considered to be nonmycorrhizal, especially those within the families Amaranthaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Carophyllaceae and Brassicaceae. At present, the interactions between these non-host plants and AM fungi are few and scattered, lacking systematic summary. In this paper, the type of non-host plants, the reason of low mycotrophy, and the effect of AM network formed by neighbor plants on AM fungi colonization on the non-host, and the possible interaction between AM fungi and non-host, as well as the material exchange between plants and AM fungi and their possible ecological functions were reviewed in order to give some new ideas on the function of the nonmycorrhizal plants in the fragile ecosystems.

This paper analyzed the niche breadth and niche overlap of dominant species of forest community in Xiaowutai Mountain, and fitted the response patterns of dominant species to the environment gradients by generalized additive models. The results showed that a total of 392 species of vascular plants, belonging to 222 genera, 75 families were recorded in 148 quadrats. A total of 36 dominant species were selected from the tree layer, shrub layer and herb layer by importance va-lues. Betula albosinensis, Betula platyphylla, Larix principis-rupprechtii, Pinus tabuliformis at the tree layer, Spiraea pubescens, Abelia biflora, Rosa bella, Corylus mandshurica at the shrub layer, Carex breviculmis, Deyeuxia arundinacea, Sanguisorba officinalis, Carex siderosticta at the herb la-yer had higher niche breadth, and these species had greater competitiveness and stronger environmental adaptability. In the same layer, niche overlap index was high indicating that species had similar habitats, and there was competitive relationship between them. Although Acer momo and Quercus wutaishanica had high niche overlap, their competition was not strong in the condition of rich resources. There was niche overlap between B. platyphylla and a variety of mixed tree species including A. momo, Q. wutaishanica, Sorbus alnifolia, and limited resources leaded to strong competition in these communities. The adaptability of each species to environmental factors was diffe-rent. The response of most dominant species to altitude showed a single peak curve, and they distri-buted within a certain altitude range. The response of some dominant species to altitude was linearly increased or decreased, and concentrated at high altitudes or low altitudes. The response of dominant species to slope position was similar to altitude. The dominant species showed a linear change along the slope, showed significantly positive correlation with soil temperature, and showed the cha-racteristics of shade-requiring or sunny-requiring. The response of B. albosinensis, A. biflora, H. bretschneideri, C. breviculmis, C. dahurica to litter layer thickness and soil thickness showed linearly increased. The response of L. principis-rupprechtii, B. albosinensis, P. fruticosa, D. arundinacea to soil moisture showed linearly increased, while linearly decreased to soil electrical conductivity. Most dominant species to soil pH and environmental disturbance showed a single peak curve, and the others showed linearly decreased.

The relationship between the distribution of halobios and environmental variables has been a focus of present research in marine ecology. Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely employed to predict the distribution patterns and potential habitat suitability assessments of marine species and provide an efficient approach for marine biodiversity conservation, invasive species prevention, and fishery management. SDMs mainly include habitat suitability index models, mechanism models, and statistical models. In this paper, the theoretical basis of SDMs was firstly concluded and summarized. Next, the exploitation and case-studies of SDMs, especially the statistical models, for predicting potential distribution of marine species were reviewed. Then, comparisons of various methods for variable selection and model validation were made. Conclusions could be drawn that Akaike information criterion showed excellent performance when it came to variable selection, while Kappa coefficient and Area Under receiver operating character Curve (AUC) were widely used in relation to model validation. Finally, problems and prospects of SDMs were discussed. With the development of research on physiological characteristics, using mechanism models to predict potential habitats of halobios would become a trend.

Since China's reform and opening-up, the rapid growth of China's economy has greatly accelerated the expansion of built-up land, which has affected regional ecological environment to a great extent. Taking Jinjiang County of Fujian Province, one of the fastest economic-developing counties in the coastal areas of southeastern China, as a case study area, this paper focused on analyzing the rapid built-up land expansion process of the county and its impact on county's ecological quality using remote sensing techniques. Based on two Landsat images of 1996 and 2015 of Jinjiang, the built-up land of the county was extracted using the index-based built-up index (IBI) and its change was analyzed. In the meantime, the ecological status of Jinjiang was evaluated with a recently-proposed remote sensing based ecological index (RSEI) and the relationship between the built-up land dynamics and the ecological status changes of the county was quantitatively examined. The results showed that during the period from 1996 to 2015, the area of built-up land of Jinjiang had a net increase of 68.54 km 2 , a growth of 45%, and the expansion intensity was 0.55. The expansion of the built-up lands has caused overall degradation of the county's ecological quality. The mean value of RSEI of the county had declined from 0.532 in 1996 to 0.460 in 2015, a drop of13.5%. The area proportion of high ecological-quality grades also significantly fell from 39% in 1996 to 21% in 2015. The built-up land expansion intensity was negatively correlated with the ecological quality change.

With increasing human disturbances (e.g., spatial fragmentation), drastic changes have taken place in spatial structure, which further affects the structure and function of ecosystem. The consequences of spatial changes on ecological processes are significantly associated with change in predator-prey interactions. Thus, exploring the relationships between spatial structure andpredator-prey interactions was of significance in understanding the underlying mechanisms of ecological changes in fragmented landscapes. This paper summarized current studies about the effects of typical spatial structures on predator-prey interactions, including the spatial size, spatial shape, spatial orientation, spatial distribution and spatial connectivity. Researches indicated that the stability and continuation of predator-prey system generally decreases with decreasing spatial size and connectivity, and excessive increase in the fragmentation of space, as well as changes in spatial shape and orientation which result in excessive increase in the grazing rate of predators. Effect of complicated spatial structure (coupled from above-mentioned structures) on predator-prey interactions, especially multispecies predator-prey interactions, should be focused on in the future.

As a typical semi-closed bay, Jiaozhou Bay, is remarkably affected by human activities. Biogenic elements transported into the oceans by the atmospheric deposition of anthropogenic particles can lead to profound impacts on the ecosystem of Jiaozhou Bay. In this paper, the researches of atmospheric dry and wet depositions in the Jiaozhou Bay were systematically summarized from the following three aspects: study methods, variation characteristics of the fluxes and their influencing factors and the ecological effects of atmospheric deposition. The concentrations and fluxes of nitrogen species in atmospheric dry and wet depositions were very high in the Jiaozhou Bay compared with other bays, estuaries and marginal seas around the world. The dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) was the main component of the total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) and the dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) accounted for 22%-31% of TDN. However, the concentrations and fluxes of phosphate and silicate species were very low. The atmospheric deposition fluxes of (NO 3 - -N+NO 2 - -N) were slightly higher than terrestrial inputs, while the fluxes of NH 4 + -N, PO 4 3- -P and SiO 3 2- -Si were very low compared with terrestrial inputs. The concentration of total suspended particulates (TSP) in the air, the intensity of the emission sources, precipitation amount and meteorological conditions are the major factors influencing the atmospheric depositions of biogenic elements, which can increase the primary productivity, change the structure of nutrients and the structure of phytoplankton communities in surface seawater and further promote the succession of phytoplankton dominant species from diatom to dinoflagellate in the Jiaozhou Bay. On that basis, the future research should be focused on constructing the monitoring network for atmospheric dry and wet depositions, accurately quantifying the deposition rates of aerosol particles of different forms and sizes, recognizing the ecological effects and biogeochemical mechanisms of atmospheric depositions of biogenic elements and discriminating the mechanisms, fluxes and influencing factors of atmospheric deposition biogenic elements via indirect approaches such as overland runoff, sheetflood and permeation etc. It is significant for illuminating the effects of anthropogenic activities on the coastal waters as well as understanding the bio-geochemical processes of biogenic elements in marginal seas by elucidating atmospheric depositions of biogenic elements in the Jiaozhou Bay.

Huizhou-Styled Village is a typical representative of the traditional Chinese ancient villages. It preserves plentiful information of the regional culture and ecological connotation. The Huizhou-Style is the apotheosis of harmony between the Chinese ancient people and nature. The research and protection of Huizhou-Styled Village plays a very important role in fields of ecology, geography, architecture and esthetics. This paper took Chengkan Village of Anhui Province as an exa-mple, and proposed a new model of ideal ecosystem oriented in theories of Feng-shui and psychological field. The new method of characterizing 3D landscape index was introduced to explore the spatial patterns of Huizhou-Styled Village and the functionality of the composited landscape components in a quantitative way. The results indicated that, Chengkan Village showed a spatially composited pattern of "mountain-forest-village-river-forest". It formed an ideal settlement ring structure with human architecture in the center and natural landscape around in the horizontal and vertical horizons. The traditional method based on the projection distance caused the deviation of the landscape index, such as underestimating the area and distance of landscape patch. The 3D landscape index of average patch area was 6.7% higher than the 2D landscape index. The increasing rate ofarea proportion in 3D index was 1.0% higher than that of 2D index in forest lands. Area proportion of the other landscapes decreased, especially the artificial landscapes like construction and cropland landscapes. The area and perimeter metric were underestimated, whereas the shape metric and the diversity metric were overestimated. This caused the underestimation of the dominance of natural patches was underestimated and the overestimation of the dominance of artificial patches during the analysis of landscape pattern. The 3D landscape index showed that the natural elements and their combination in Chengkan Village ecosystem reflected better ecological function, the key elements and the composited landscape ecosystem preserved higher stability, connectivity and aggregation. The quantitative confirmation showed that the Huizhou-Styled Village represented by Chengkan Village is an ideal ecosystem.

Quantitative evaluation on the vegetation recovery after the earthquake is of great scienti-fic significance for local ecological system rebuilding and regional social-economic sustainable deve-lopment. By taking the Longxi River Basin in Dujiangyan of Sichuan Province as an example, and employing the MODIS-NDVI time-series data, this paper illustrated the dynamic changes of the ve-getation cover rates in Longxi River basin before and after the 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake by using Landsat data, and then time-space characters of the recovery rates of the damaged vegetation was quantified structurally by referring the factors of river-system and terrain. The results showed that the recovery of impaired vegetation coverage worked well from a holistic point of view, but the response of vegetation coverage to earthquake disaster showed a lagging-phenomenon. The recovery rate of damaged vegetation was significantly correlated to its distance to surrounding river systems, elevation, slope degree, and slope aspect. This finding could provide technical supports for decision-makers to intervene the recovering process after earthquake.

Soil respiration (R s ) is the main efflux of carbon pool from soil to atmosphere. Increasing R s caused by rising temperature can result in significant change in the global carbon balance. Global mean land-surface temperature is predicted to rise by 0.3-4.8 ℃ by the end of 21 century. Therefore, how R s responds to simulated experimental warming in the natural field is one of the critical issues in global change research. Here, we reviewed the response characteristics of R s to simulated warming under different temporal and spatial patterns. Experimental warming can increase R s at the short time scale, but there was no uniform law in the long-term warming experiments, and there were differences among different ecosystems. This paper also reviewed the mechanism underlying the simulated warming response of R s . Warming can directly affect R s , and warming can also affect R s indirectly by affecting the environmental factors (e.g., soil water, soil salt, soil physical and che-mical properties), and the regulation of biological factors (e.g., photosynthesis, litter decomposition). Furthermore, we synthesized the formation mechanism of adaptability of R s to warming, including adaptability of microbes, roots and enzymes to warming, water restriction, and regulation by excessive nitrogen and the substrate supply. Finally, the future research directions were proposed. The study of micro-ecosystem of rhizosphere, characteristics and mechanism of R s under asymmetric warming should be strengthened. Also, more attention should be paid to the measurement of R s in typical phenological periods and typical weather in different seasons. The research network of R s response to simulated warming should be constructed for networking test.

It is of great significance to study agroecosystem health in major grain producing areas based on the theory and method of ecosystem health. This paper selected Jilin Province as the study area, and an evaluation index system of agroecosystem health was built based on the SSI-VOR conceptual framework model. Using the optimal combined weights method, comprehensive evaluation assessment, GIS spatial analysis and grey slope similarity incidence models, the spatial-temporal pattern of agroecosystem health and influence factors were analyzed from 2000 to 2011 in Jilin Pro-vince. The results indicated that, temporally, the composite index of agroecosystem health showed a rising trend in Jilin Province from 1995 to 2011, and the agroecosystem health level changed from not healthy to relatively healthy; spatially, the spatial discrepancy of agroecosystem health level tended to become larger, which remained unchanged in central area, while was gradually improved in southeast and west. The main contributors which improved the agroecosystem health level were economic driving force, environmental management and social development, while the main 'dragging' factors were ecological pressure, organization structure and input capacity. Finally, relevant measures were put forward to improve the agroecosystem health condition.

Land use change has an important role in hydrological processes and utilization of water resources, and is the main driving force of water yield function of ecosystem. This paper analyzed the change of land use from 1990 to 2013 in Nansi Lake Basin, Shandong Province. The future land use in 2030 was also predicted and simulated by CLUE-S model. Based on land use scenarios, we analyzed the influence of land use change on ecosystem function of water yield in nearly 25 years through InVEST water yield model and spatial mapping. The results showed that the area of construction land increased by 3.5% in 2013 because of burgeoning urbanization process, but farmland area decreased by 2.4% which was conversed to construction land mostly. The simulated result of InVEST model suggested that water yield level of whole basin decreased firstly and increased subsequently during last 25 years and peaked at 232.1 mm in 2013. The construction land area would increase by 6.7% in 2030 based on the land use scenarios of fast urbanization, which would lead to a remarkable growth for water yield and risk of flowing flooding. However, the water yield level of whole basin would decrease by 1.2 % in 2013 if 300 meter-wide forest buffer strips around Nansi Lake were built up.

Based on ArcGIS, Erdas, GuidosToolbox, Conefor and other software platforms, using morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) and landscape connectivity analysis methods, this paper quantitatively analysed the scale effect, edge effect and distance effect of the Nanjing urban green infrastructure network pattern in 2013 by setting different pixel sizes (P) and edge widths in MSPA analysis, and setting different dispersal distance thresholds in landscape connectivity analysis. The results showed that the type of landscape acquired based on the MSPA had a clear scale effect and edge effect, and scale effects only slightly affected landscape types, whereas edge effects were more obvious. Different dispersal distances had a great impact on the landscape connectivity, 2 km or 2.5 km dispersal distance was a critical threshold for Nanjing. When selecting the pixel size 30 m of the input data and the edge wide 30 m used in the morphological model, we could get more detailed landscape information of Nanjing UGI network. Based on MSPA and landscape connectivity, analysis of the scale effect, edge effect, and distance effect on the landscape types of the urban green infrastructure (UGI) network was helpful for selecting the appropriate size, edge width, and dispersal distance when developing these networks, and for better understanding the spatial pattern of UGI networks and the effects of scale and distance on the ecology of a UGI network. This would facilitate a more scientifically valid set of design parameters for UGI network spatiotemporal pattern analysis. The results of this study provided an important reference for Nanjing UGI networks and a basis for the analysis of the spatial and temporal patterns of medium-scale UGI landscape networks in other regions.

Eco-services provided by non-agricultural organisms are the basis of ecosystem to keep its stability in agricultural landscapes. With the strengthening of agricultural intensification, the ongoing loss of biodiversity is one of the most extrusive issues in the development of modern agriculture. In this paper, the study area was set up in Gongyi County, a typical agricultural region in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. According to its typical topography (mountain-hilly-plain) type, we explored the effects of landscape heterogeneity on the diversity of pollinators at three different scales, which were geomorphic categories, landscape and habitat. Pan traps were used to obtain pollinators in this study. The effects of agricultural landscape heterogeneity at multi-scales on the diversity of pollinators were analyzed by using multivariable ANOVA. The results showed that a total of 67012 pollinator individuals that belonged to 86 classes and 7 subjects were classified. The dominant groups inclu-ded Syrphidae and Anthomyiidae. The common groups included Drosophilidae, Calliphoridae, Bombyliidae, Pipunculidae, Cantharidae, Cynipidae, Vespidae, Chalalcididae, Megachilidae and Apidae. Geomorphic categories showed the most significant impact on pollinators (P<0.001), suggesting that hilly and mountainous areas were the pollinators' ground of nectar. It was followed by habitat scale (P<0.05), with non-significant effect on the scales of landscape and the interaction between scales. The effect of landscape heterogeneity on the diversity of pollinators in hilly and mountainous areas provided a theoretical support for landscape planning and biodiversity conservation on the local area with different geomorphic categories.

With the development of social economy, human disturbance has resulted in a variety of ecosystem service degradation or disappearance. Ecosystem services flow plays an important role in delivery, transformation and maintenance of ecosystem services, and becomes one of the new research directions. In this paper, based on the classification of ecosystem services flow, we analyzed ecosystem service delivery carrier, and investigated the mechanism of ecosystem service flow, including the information, property, scale features, quantification and cartography. Moreover, a tentative analysis on cost-effective of ecosystem services flow (such as transportation costs, conversion costs, usage costs and cost of relativity) was made to analyze the consumption cost in ecosystem services flow process. It aimed to analyze dissipation cost in ecosystem services flow process. To a certain extent, the study of ecosystem service flow solved the problem of "double counting" in ecosystem services valuation, which could make a contribution for the sake of recognizing hot supply and consumption spots of ecosystem services. In addition, it would be conducive to maximizing the ecosystem service benefits in the transmission process and putting forward scientific and reasonable ecological compensation.

Human demand for various ecosystem services continues to increase. The previous studies focused mainly on using economic methods to assess ecosystem service values, but few studies took social attributes and spatial heterogeneity into consideration. In this paper, we selected Wusong Paotaiwan Wetland Forest Park in Shanghai as the study area, and used Social Values for Ecosystem services (SolVES) model to assess the social values of several ecosystem services, such as aesthetic, biodiversity, cultural, recreation, etc. The results showed that the "hotspots" were situated in the places which were close to the water landscape with a broad vision such as the lawn park, Wusong Fort memorial square and waterfront observation deck. Aesthetic, historic, biodiversity, cultural, recreation and therapeutic values were the visitors' preference values. Visitors' prefe-rences could be influenced by the water landscape and the roads significantly. The value indexes of aesthetic, biodiversity, recreation and therapeutics had a significant negative correlation with the distance to water (DTW) and the value indexes of aesthetic and therapeutics had a significant negative correlation with the distance to roads (DTR). Visit frequency could influence visitors' attitudes and preferences towards biodiversity and therapeutics. SolVES had the potential to explicitly assess the social values of ecosystem services at a small scale.

To objectively evaluate and compare the stability and sustainability of different planting patterns of typical watersheds in Loess Plateau of China after the Grain for Green Project, this paper used the emergy analysis method to quantify the emergy inputs and outputs of three watersheds with different planting patterns, i.e., both grains and fruit trees (Gaoxigou watershed), mainly grains (Wuliwan watershed) and mainly fruit trees (Miaozuigou watershed). In addition, an emergy analysis system was established to evaluate the suitability of the three patterns from the perspectives of natural resources pressure as well as social and economic development levels. More than 75% of the total emergy inputs of all the three watersheds were purchased, and nonrenewable emergy inputs had a much larger contribution than renewable emergy inputs, indicating the characteristic of low emergy self-sufficient ratio and considerable high environmental loading ratio. The pattern of planting grains had high emergy inputs but low emergy outputs, while the patterns of planting fruit trees and planting both had high emergy inputs and outputs. The energy densities of all three patterns reached two times of the average of agricultural systems in China. Especially, the net emergy of planting grains pattern was the lowest while that of planting both grains and fruit trees was the highest. The environmental sustainability index (ESI) of planting grains pattern was less than 1 and both emergy and ESI were much lower than national averages. The ESI of planting both grains and fruit trees pattern was the highest. In summary, comparison of the three patterns showed that planting both grains and fruit trees had better sustainability and high stability and the emergy production efficiency was high. Thus, it was suggested to change the agricultural development from watershed based units to multi-industry integrated mode.

China is advocating ecological civilization construction nowadays. Further researches on the relation between ecosystem service and humanity well-being are full of theoretical and practical significance. Combining related researches, this paper defined the concept and connotation of ecological well-being based on ecosystem service theory. Referencing theory of national economic accounting and relative researches, the evaluation indicators of ecological well-being supply and consumption were established. The quantitative characterization and evaluation method of red line of regional ecological well-being was proposed on the basis of location quotient. Then the evaluation of ecological well-being in mainland China in 2012 was set as an example for empirical research. The results showed that the net product values of 6 ecosystems, includingcultivated land, forest land, grassland, wetland, water area and unused land, were respectively 1481.925, 8194.806, 4176.277, 4245.760, 3177.084 and 133.762 billion CNY. Spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem net product in different provinces was distinct. Ecological well-being per capita of forest land, grassland, wetland, cultivated land and unused land in eastern and middle provinces were under the red line and less than the national average. The spatial distribution of 9 kinds of ecological well-being per capita split at Hu's line with high value in northwest and low value in southeast, and was aggravated by differences in density of population and land resources gift.

Landscape pattern vulnerability reflects the instability and sensitivity of ecological system to external disturbances and helps to understand the status and trend of ecological environment. This paper used landscape sensitivity index and landscape adaptability index to construct the landscape pattern vulnerability index of Yinchuan Basin, and got the distribution of the landscape pattern vulnerability in 2001 and 2013. Our study explored the effect of the land use degree composite index, the integrated land use dynamic degree, the importance index of land use change and various types of land transfer on landscape pattern vulnerability. Results showed that the land use degree composite index was mainly caused by the increase of the arable land, forest and the construction land. The higher proportion of the arable land or forest, the lower the vulnerability was, and the construction land had the opposite effect. With the increase of integrated land use dynamic degree, the construction land significantly increased the vulnerability, followed by grassland, and the forest significantly decreased the vulnerability, followed by the arable land. As the importance index of land use change increasing, the arable land could significantly decrease the vulnerability, followed by the forest, the grassland had a weaker trend with no obvious pattern, and the construction land significantly increased the vulnerability. When the arable land, forest and the grassland were the maintypes of land use transfer, the increasing proportion of the construction land increased the vulnerability. When the construction land was the main type of land use transfer, the grassland and forest improved the vulnerability and the arable land had the opposite effect. Changes in the number of land use types influenced the spatial structure of land use to a certain extent, which could offer a reference on using and developing the land resources scientifically. The ternary diagram could reflect the impact of various types of and use change on the landscape vulnerability, which diagram enriched the content of the research on the land use and change.

This paper investigated the genus diversity of soil nematodes of different agricultural areas in Jiangsu Province, analyzed the relationship between soil nematodes and soil environmental factors, and discussed the roles of soil nematodes as biological indicators of soil health. The results showed that, a total of 41 nematode genera were found in all six agricultural areas, belonging to 19 families, 7 orders, 2 classes. The numbers and community compositions of nematodes were obviously influenced by soil texture, fertilization and tillage practices. In all six agricultural areas, the numbers of nematodes in coastal agricultural area (400 individuals per 100 g dry soil) were significantly larger than that in Xuhuai, Ningzhenyang, and riverside agricultural areas. While the smallest number of nematodes was found in Yanjiang agricultural area (232 individuals per 100 g dry soil), which might be due to the differences in soil texture, annual rainfall and annual air temperature and other factors. The dominant genera of nematodes were similar in the adjacent agricultural areas. Correlation analysis showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the number of soil nematodes and levels of soil nutrients (soil organic matter, total nitrogen, available nitrogen, available potassium and available phosphorus). Redundancy analysis (RDA) indicated the total nitrogen, available potassium and pH obviously affected some soil nematode genera. The analysis of spatial distribution characteristics of soil nematode community in farmland of Jiangsu Province could provide data for health assessment of agricultural ecosystems.

As a widespread natural phenomenon in the soil of middle and high latitude as well as high altitude, freeze-thawing cycles have a great influence on the nitrogen cycle of terrestrial ecosystem in non-growing season. Freeze-thawing cycles can alter the physicochemical and biological properties of the soil, which thereby affect the migration and transformation of soil nitrogen. The impacts of freeze-thawing cycles on key processes of nitrogen cycle in terrestrial ecosystem found in available studies remain inconsistent, the mechanism is still not clear, and the research methods also need to be further explored and innovated. So it is necessary to sum up and analyze the existing achievements in order to better understand the processes of soil nitrogen cycle subjected to freeze-thawing cycles. This paper reviewed the research progress in China and abroad about the effects and mechanisms of freeze-thawing cycles on key processes of nitrogen cycle in terrestrial ecosystem, including mineralization, immobilization, nitrification and denitrification, N leakage and gaseous loss, and analyzed the deficiencies of extant research. The possible key research topics that should be urgently paid more attention to in the future were also discussed.

Qinghai Lake is the largest inland and salt water lake in China, and provides important ecosystem services to beneficiaries. Economic valuation of wetland ecosystem services from Qinghai Lake can reveal the direct contribution of lake ecosystems to beneficiaries using economic data, which can advance the incorporation of wetland protection of Qinghai Lake into economic tradeoffs and decision analyses. In this paper, we established a final ecosystem services valuation system based on the underlying ecological mechanisms and regional socio-economic conditions. We then evaluated the eco-economic value provided by the wetlands at Qinghai Lake to beneficiaries in 2012 using the market value method, replacement cost method, zonal travel cost method, and contingent valuation method. According to the valuation result, the total economic values of the final ecosystem services provided by the wetlands at Qinghai Lake were estimated to be 6749.08 x 10(8) yuan RMB in 2012, among which the value of water storage service and climate regulation service were 4797.57 x 10(8) and 1929.34 x 10(8) yuan RMB, accounting for 71.1% and 28.6% of the total value, respectively. The economic value of the 8 final ecosystem services was ranked from greatest to lowest as: water storage service > climate regulation service > recreation and tourism service > non-use value > oxygen release service > raw material production service > carbon sequestration service > food production service. The evaluation result of this paper reflects the substantial value that the wetlands of Qinghai Lake provide to beneficiaries using monetary values, which has the potential to help increase wetland protection awareness among the public and decision-makers, and inform managers about ways to create ecological compensation incentives. The final ecosystem service evaluation system presented in this paper will offer guidance on separating intermediate services and final services, and establishing monitoring programs for dynamic ecosystem services valuation with the aim of helping improve management outcomes.

In this paper, the interaction between the species Population were analyzed based on the data of major nekton species in the south coastal waters of Cangnan in spring and autumn 2014. A series of methods including niche breadth, niche overlap, χ2 - test and association coefficient (AC) based on a 2x2 contingency table were used. The results showed that the major nekton species in the south coastal waters of Cangnan were classified into three groups, i.e. wide niche breadth species, moderate niche breadth species and narrow niche breadth species based on the niche breadth values. The wide niche breadth species of nekton were Harpodon nehereus, Portunus trituberculatus, mantis shrimp and other 2 species. The moderate niche breadth species of nekton were Collichthys lucidus, Parapenaeopsis hardwickii, Parapenaeopsis tenella and other 5 species. While the species with narrow niche breadths were Charybdis japonica, Amblychaeturichthys hexanema, Palaemon gravieri and other 7 species. There were great differences in the niche overlap values among the major nekton populations, with the maximum value of 0.93 and the minimum of 0, which indicated that resource utilization competition in some nekton might exist. The results of variance ratio analysis for major nekton in the south coastal waters of Cangnan showed that they were significantly positively correlated. χ2 - test results showed that there were significantly interspecific association for 78 species pairs (χ2≥3.841), among which more association coefficients (AC) of species pairs are positive.

In this paper, the dynamics of ecosystem macrostructure, qualities and core services during 2000 and 2010 were analyzed for the key ecological function zones of China, which were classified into four types of water conservation, soil conservation, wind prevention and sand fixation, and biodiversity maintenance. In the water conservation ecological function zones, the areas of forest and grassland ecosystems were decreased whereas water bodies and wetland were increased in the past 11 years, and the water conservation volume of forest, grassland and wetland ecosystems increased by 2.9%. This region needs to reverse the decreasing trends of forest and grassland ecosystems. In the soil conservation ecological function zones, the area of farmland ecosystem was decreased, and the areas of forest, grassland, water bodies and wetland ecosystems were increased. The total amount of the soil erosion was reduced by 28.2%, however, the soil conservation amount of ecosystems increased by 38.1%. In the wind prevention and sand fixation ecological function zones, the areas of grassland, water bodies and wetland ecosystems were decreased, but forest and farmland ecosystems were increased. The unit amount of the soil. wind erosion was reduced and the sand fixation amount of ecosystems increased lightly. In this kind of region that is located in arid and semiarid areas, ecological conservation needs to reduce farmland area and give priority to the protection of the original ecological system. In the biodiversity maintenance ecological function zones, the areas of grassland and desert ecosystems were decreased and other types were increased. The human disturbances showed a weakly upward trend and needs to be reduced. The key ecological function zones should be aimed at the core services and the protecting objects, to assess quantitatively on the effectiveness of ecosystem conservation and improvement.

Copepods are the key group in aquatic ecosystems, and play an important role in energy flow, the cycle of materials and information transfer. This paper summarized the distribution and composition of the copepods that spawn resting eggs in the estuarine and coastal marine areas. It also reviewed the survival time, hatching rates, abundance of resting eggs in the sediments, and the potential recruitment into the plankton population as correlated with environmental factors. The prospects of copepod resting egg ecology were also proposed in order to provide new ideas for future research.

The method for monetary value and emergy value analysis of ecosystem service was used in this paper to analyze the change in value of marine ecosystem service of Wanshan District, Zhuhai from 2007 to 2012. The result showed that the monetary value and emergy value of marine ecosystem service of Wanshan District, Zhuhai rose to 11512840000 yuan and 1.97 x 10(22) sej from 7721630000 yuan and 1.04 x 10(22) sej, respectively. Both monetary value and emergy value could forecast the change in the value of marine ecosystem service, but they reflected different value structures and ecological energy, which could be used to more objectively evaluate the ecosystem service. Ecological civilization development, as an inherent driving force to impel the development of marine ecosystem service structure, was important for rational exploitation of marine resources and optimization of marine ecosystem service.

Based on the concept and methods of landscape character assessment (LCA) in England, this paper applied a complete process of landscape character assessment with a case study in Qiaokou Town, which is located in a typical southern paddy fields area in Changsha City. We drew the landscape character map of Qiaokou Town through desk classification and field survey, identified and compared the key characters of each character area, and proposed suggestions on the improvement and stewardship of landscape characters. The results showed that Qiaokou could be divided into 2 landscape character types and 7 landscape character areas with the main differences in cropland and vegetation pattern as well as aesthetic characters. The case study indicated that LCA could be a critical tool to identify the characteristics in rural area, and provide helpful guidance to protect, restore and maintain the unique culture and characters of rural landscape, which is useful for targeted rural landscape development. In the future, we suggested that the assessment on the effects of landscape construction measures on the ecosystem services should be incorporated in LCA research as well.

This paper developed a new interpretation symbol system for grading and classifying saline-alkali land, using Huanghua, a cosatal city in Hebei Province as a case. The system was developed by inverting remote sensing images from 1992 to 2011 based on site investigation, plant cover characteristics and features of remote sensing images. Combining this interpretation symbol system with supervising classification method, the information on arable land was obtained for the coastal saline-alkali ecosystem of Huanghua City, and the saline-alkali land area, changes in intensity of salinity-alkalinity and spatial distribution from 1992 to 2011 were analyzed. The results showed that salinization of arable land in Huanghua City alleviated from 1992 to 2011. The severely and moderately saline-alkali land area decreased in 2011 compared with 1992, while the non/slightly saline land area increased. The moderately saline-alkali land in southeast transformed to non/slightly saline-alkaline, while the severely saline-alkali land in west of the city far from the coastal zone became moderately saline-alkaline. The center of gravity (CG) of severely and non/slightly saline-alkali land moved closer the coastline, while that of the moderately saline-alkali land moved from southwest coastal line to northwest. Factors influencing changes in arable land within the saline-alkali ecosystem of Huanghua City were climate, hydrology and human activities.

Yangtze River Delta region is the world's sixth and China's largest urban agglomeration. Its rapid and massive urbanization has also caused a series of ecological and environmental impacts. This paper accounted the inventory of carbon sources and sinks in Yangtze River Delta region during 1995-2010 and analyzed their spatiotemporal patterns. It was found that the carbon sinks increased by 9.43 million tons from 1995 to 2010, in which forest ecosystem net production in Zhejiang Province was the largest contributor. The "grain for green" policy implemented since 2003 in China played a significant role in increasing the forest area and the carbon sinks. The carbon sources increased by 327 million tons, and energy consumption and industrial processes based emissions accounted for 96% of total carbon sources in 2010. Due to the large share of manufacturing and heavy industries in economy and their dependence on the high carbon intensity energy, either the amount or the growth speed of carbon emissions in Jiangsu Province was the top one in the whole region. Moreover, because the growth speed of net carbon emissions that occurred upon the built-up land was much faster than the sprawl speed of urban built-up land, the net carbon emission intensity kept increasing in the whole region, in which Jiangsu Province demonstrated the fastest increase.

Based on the MODIS-NDVI remotely sensed imagery, this paper analyzed the spatial distribution of vegetation net primary production (NPP) calculated by CASA model in Yellow River watersheds from 2001 to 2010. Associated with the temperature and precipitation data in the same period, this article respectively analyzed the change trends of vegetation NPP in six ecosystems with different spatial and temporal scales, and the relationship between NPP and climate factors. The results indicated that in terms of spatial scale, the vegetation NPP gradually reduced from northwest to southeast, the average of annual NPP was 108.53 Tg C, and the spatial distribution of vegetation NPP was highly related with the land cover types. In terms of temporal scale, the vegetation NPP gradually increased from 2001 to 2010, but this change trend had large differences in these regions. On annual level, the vegetation NPP had no significant correlation with climate factors, but precipitation and temperature had considerable impacts on the vegetation NPP on monthly level. The correlations between NPP and climate factors were different in different ecosystems, so did the time lag effect of the climate factors. The air temperature response of the NPP variation was relatively sensitive in forest ecosystem and the precipitation response was significant in grassland and wetland ecosystems. Additionally, the precipitation response of the NPP variation in grassland ecosystem had time lag effect and so did the air temperature response in desert ecosystem.

By using remote sensing and GIS technology, this paper collected land use information of 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 and the relevant statistical data, and analyzed the characteristics of land use change and its driving forces in northwestern Shanxi Province, the typical ecological fragile area. The results showed that there were significant changes in land use patterns in the past 30 years. During 1980-1990, 1990-2000 and 2000-2010 periods, the area of farmland decreased continuously, while the areas of grassland and woodland experienced increase-decrease-increase and decrease-increase-decrease patterns of change, respectively. The areas of industrial and resident lands increased continuously, but the water body and unused land decreased. The farmland was mainly transformed to grassland and woodland, and the areas of industrial and resident lands increased from the farmland. The lost area of water body was transformed to grassland and farmland. The decrease of unused land was due to the implementation of ecological engineering and urban ex-panding. In general, the changes of land use types were significantly higher before 2000 than after 2000. The industrial and resident lands, unused land and grassland changed drastically. The relationships between land use types and driving forces indicated that population pressure and economic development led to the changes of industrial land and farmland; policy of forestry ecological engi- neering drove the changes of woodland and grassland; the drought-characterized climate was the major cause inducing the decrease of water area and hindering the restoration of forest.

Land consolidation, as one of the major driving forces for the changes of land use/cover, has significant impacts on landscape patterns, ecological functions, and ecosystem services. In this paper, a land consolidation project conducted in Da'an City, Jinlin Province, China, was selected to evaluate the ecosystem service values before and after land consolidation at three spatial scales, i. e., village, town, and county. The results indicated that the land consolidation with the goal to increase the area of cultivated land might cause the decrease of the saline and alkaline land, grassland, and wetland. In addition, land consolidation resulted in the reduction of the total ecosystem service values at varying degree at the three scales. Compared to the pre-consolidation status, the total post-consolidation ecosystem service values at the village, town and county scales were 7.96, 843.01 and 1205.86 million yuan, and reduced by 10.5%, 14.2% and 33.1%, respectively. Based on the evaluation of ecosystem service value, strategies of landscape ecological design were discussed to improve the ecological functions and to provide the guidance for the sustainable development of land consolidation.

Based on the land use vector data of Wuhan Urban Agglomeration in the years 1990, 2000 and 2009, this paper used Costanza' s evaluation formula to estimate the ecosystem service value (ESV) of the study area according to "equivalent value per unit area of ecosystem services in China" and analyze its spatio-temporal characteristics. Then the correlation analysis was applied to explore the association between the ESV evolution and the land use changes. The results showed that due to the substantial growth of water area, the ESV of Wuhan Urban Agglomeration increased by 9.5% during the study period, which showed an overall rising trend. The ESV of water regulation and waste treatment increased obviously. Furthermore, the ESV changes showed obvious regional differences, which were most significant in Xiantao, Xinzhou and Yunmeng. The ESV was higher in the southeast and lower in the northwest. Over time, a Wuhan-centered "low-high-low" hierarchically distributed structure of ESV was formed in the eastern, western and northern parts. The ecologic dominance of the northern mountainous and hilly region was gradually abated, while a structural expansion with a high-ESV cluster had taken place in the southern part of the region in 2009. During the research period, the temporal change of ESV in Wuhan Urban Agglomeration was positively correlated with the area changes of forestland, water, grassland and cultivated land. However, the spatially balanced distribution of ESV was negatively correlated with the dispersion degrees of the cultivated land and unused land.

Litter decomposition is one of the important biochemical processes in arid and semi-arid regions, and a key component of regional nutrient turnover and carbon cycling, which is mainly affected by climate, litter quality, and decomposer community. In order to deeply understand the relationships between litter decomposition and environmental factors in arid and semi-arid regions, this paper summarized the research progress in the effects of abiotic factors (soil temperature, precipitation, and ultraviolet-B radiation) and biotic factors (litter quality, soil microbial and animal composition and community structure) on the litter decomposition in these regions. Among the factors, precipitation and ultraviolet-B radiation are considered to be the main limiting factors of litter decomposition. In arid and semi-arid regions, precipitation can significantly increase the litter decomposition rate in a short term, while the photo-degradation induced by ultraviolet-B radiation, due to the strong and long-term radiation, can increase the decomposition rate of terrestrial litter. Litter quality, soil microbial and animal composition and community structure are mainly affected by the type of ecosystems in a long term. However, the affecting mechanisms of these environmental factors on litter decomposition are still not very clear. It was suggested that the future litter ecological research should be paid more attention to the interaction of environmental factors under climate change, the variations of litter decomposition at different spatial scales, and the establishment of litter decomposition models in relation to the synergistic interactions of multiple factors.

Taking a large standard runoff plot on a red soil slope in Qiyang County, southern Hunan Province as a case, this paper studied the surface soil phosphorus loss characteristics in the hilly red soil regions of southern Hunan under eight ecological planting patterns. The phosphorus loss from wasteland (T1) was most serious, followed by that from natural sloped cropping patterns (T2 and T3), while the phosphorus loss amount from terrace cropping patterns (T4-T8) was the least, only occupying 9.9%, 37%, 0.7%, 2.3%, and 1.9% of T1, respectively. The ecological planting patterns directly affected the forms of surface-lost soil phosphorus, with the particulate phosphorus (PP) as the main lost form. Under the condition of rainstorm (daily rainfall > 50 mm), rainfall had lesser effects on the phosphorus loss among different planting patterns. However, the phosphorus loss increased with increasing rain intensity. The surface soil phosphorus loss mainly occurred from June to September. Both the rainfall and the rain intensity were the factors directly affected the time distribution of surface soil phosphorus loss in hilly red soil regions of southern Hunan.

Evapotranspiration (ET) is an important component of hydrological cycle of terrestrial ecosystem. To study the seasonal and interannual ET variation patterns of typical ecosystems is essential to better understand the water cycle process and to provide reference for the rational utilization of water resources. By using eddy covariance method, this paper studied the seasonal and interannual variation characteristics of ET and water budget in an alpine shrub meadow ecosystem in Haibei of Qinghai from 2003 to 2011. There was an obvious seasonal variation of ET in the study area in 2003-2011, with the maximum (4.4-5.7 mm x d(-1)) in the vigorous growth season (July-August) and the minimum (0.09 +/- 0.04 mm x d(-1)) in January or December. The annual ET varied greatly among the nine consecutive years, being 451.3 mm in 2010 and 681.3 mm in 2007. More than 70% of the annual ET occurred in the growth season from May to September. The average ratio of annual ET to annual precipitation was 1.06 +/- 0.17, indicating that the water budget of this ecosystem was nearly balanced at year scale, and almost all the precipitation was released into atmosphere by ET.

Gloiopeltis furcata, an important economic red macroalga, has been severely depleted due to human disturbances. Taking the natural G. furcata populations around the Xiaoheishan Island of Shandong, China as test objects, this paper studied the spatiotemporal variation pattern of their biomass and length and related affecting factors. The two-way ANCOVA showed that at island scale, both the subbottom and the Baardseth index had significant effects on the G. furcata biomass and length. The steady subbottom and the high Baardseth index were beneficial to the G. furcata growth. At micerohabitat scale, wave action and tidal level had significant effects on the G. furcata biomass and length. Wave wash and moderate tidal level promoted the G. furcata growth. The one-way repeated measurements ANOVA showed there existed seasonal variation of G. furcat biomass and length. The optimal growth period of G. furcata was from March to April, with the peak values of biomass and length appeared in late spring and early summer.

Crop growth is a continuous and dynamic process, and thus, the optimal meteorological indices for crop growth also change continuously. In this paper, the estimation algorithms of the daily available precipitation and the temporal interpolation methods of meteorological indices for crop growth were developed, and the climatic suitability model at daily scale was established, which was tested by the spring maize data of agro-meteorological stations in Northeast China. The simulated climatic suitability had significantly positive correlations with the height and 100-grain mass of spring maize. The correlation coefficient (R2) between the climatic suitability and the spring maize height was over 0.58 at vegetative growth stage, and over 0.45 at reproductive growth stage. The established climatic suitability model at daily scale could objectively reflect the interactions between crop growth and meteorological factors at vegetative growth stage and reproductive growth stage.

Biochar, as a new type of soil amendment, has been obtained considerable attention in the research field of environmental sciences worldwide. The studies on the effects of biochar in improving soil physical and chemical properties started quite earlier, and already covered the field of soil microbial ecology. However, most of the studies considered the soil physical and chemical properties and the microbial ecology separately, with less consideration of their interactions. This paper summarized and analyzed the interrelationships between the changes of soil physical and chemical properties and of soil microbial community after the addition of biochar. Biochar can not only improve soil pH value, strengthen soil water-holding capacity, increase soil organic matter content, but also affect soil microbial community structure, and alter the abundance of soil bacteria and fungi. After the addition of biochar, the soil environment and soil microorganisms are interacted each other, and promote the improvement of soil microbial ecological system together. This review was to provide a novel perspective for the in-depth studies of the effects of biochar on soil microbial ecology, and to promote the researches on the beneficial effects of biochar to the environment from ecological aspect. The methods to improve the effectiveness of biochar application were discussed, and the potential applications of biochar in soil bioremediation were further analyzed.

The researches on the plant population spatial pattern were mostly based on 0-D plant point (0-D IND) or 0-D plant count, and only a few was based on the 2-D projective cover (2-D PC) and 3-D aboveground biomass (3-D AGB reflected by canopy volume). Until now, the plant population spatial distribution patterns incarnated by these parameters were still unclear. Taking the widely distributed small semi-shrubs Seriphidium terrae-albae and Artemisia songarica in Gurbantunggut Desert of Northwest China as test objects, this paper studied the IND, PC, and AGB of each individual at two sampling plots. Through six-scale division of plot coordinate system with GIS, and by using aggregation analysis, coefficient of variation (CV) , and a scaling exponent between the CV and six scales, the characteristics of the population spatial distribution patterns with the above mentioned parameters were comparatively analyzed. At all scales, the IND (except for the S. terrae-albae population at 0.5 m scale) and the AGB of the two shrubs all presented a clumped distribution, and the aggregation intensity increased' with increasing scale. However, the PC had a uniform distribution (except for the A. songarica population at 5 and 8 m scales). With increasing scale, the CV values of the two shrubs decreased. The absolute value of scaling exponent (k value) of the IND was higher than those of the PC and AGB, and there was no significant difference in the k values between the PC and AGB, indicating that the scale variation scope of the struc- tural complexity of the IND was larger than that of the PC and AGB. The k value of each parameter for S. terrae-albae was higher than that for A. songarica, which could be related to the populations' interspecific relationship and plant size. In sum, the IND and AGB had similar spatial patterns, while the PC and AGB had almost same spatial pattern complexity and scale change characteristics.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are one of the important components in ecosystems, which not only have the diversity in genetics, species composition, and function, but also have the diversity in distribution and habitat. AMF infect plant root, form mycorrhiza, and nourish as obligate biotroph symbiont, with strong ecological adaptability. They not only distribute in forest, prairie, and farm land, but also distribute in the special habitats with less plant species diversity, such as commercial greenhouse soil, saline-alkali soil, mining pollution land, petroleum-contaminated land, pesticide-polluted soil, desert, dry land, wetland, marsh, plateau, volcanic, cooler, and arctic tundra, composing a unique community structure and playing an important irreplaceable role in the physiological and ecological functions. This paper summarized the species diversity and mycorrhizal morphological features of AMF in special habitats, aimed to provide essential information for the further studies on the AMF in these special habitats and extreme environments.

By using the 1994-2010 observation data of paddy rice growth period and yield from 14 agro-meteorological stations at different altitudes in Yunnan Province, this paper studied the rice yield formation and the effects of meteorological factors on low-yield rice yield components. According to the systematic cluster analysis of rice yield components and the rice types at the 14 stations, the rice was divided into 4 types, i. e., low-yield japonica rice, low-yield indica rice, high-yield japonica rice, and high-yield indica rice. The analysis of the yield components of the 4 rice types showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the spikelet number per square meter (sqm) and the rice yield. The yield of low-yield japonica was mainly affected by the seed setting rate and the spikelet number per sqm. For the other three rice types, the spikelet number per sqm had greater effects on the rice yield. The low-yield japonica rice was mainly affected by low temperature. At booting stage, low temperature decreased the spikelet number and the productive panicle number of unit sqm. At booting and flowering stages, low temperature increased the empty grain rate, and the effects of average temperature, average maximum temperature, and cold accumulated temperature were greater. At pre-milk stage, low temperature increased the unfilled grain rate, and meanwhile, decreased the 1000-grain mass. The yield components of low-yield indica rice were obviously affected by multiple meteorological factors. A certain degree of warming at tillering and jointing stages was not beneficial to the increase of productive panicle number per sqm of low-yield indica rice, but the more sunshine hours and the greater average diurnal temperature range at tillering stage was beneficial to the increase of the productive panicle number per sqm. There was a parabolic relationship between the temperature and sunshine hours at tillering and jointing stages and the spikelet number per panicle. The low temperature at flowering stage affected the empty grain rate of low-yield indica rice to a certain extent, while the high temperature and less rain at pre-milk stage not only increased the unfilled grain rate, but also distinctly reduced the 1000-grain mass.

By the method of index evaluation at reach scale, this paper evaluated the ecological functions of aquatic biodiversity maintenance, habitat maintenance, water quality sustainment, and hydrological support of the river system in Taizi River basin of North China. The dominant ecological functions and the total ecological function were determined after sorting and summing. All the reaches in the basin were divided into four hierarchies of ecological functions. Overall, the total ecological function showed a spatially degrading trend from the mountainous region to the plain. Based on the evaluation results of the total function and dominant functions, six ecosystem management strategies were proposed. For the reaches with the functions of aquatic biodiversity- and habitat maintenance, the primary ecological management strategies included ecological conservation, ecological maintenance, and ecological restoration; for the reaches with the functions of water quality sustainment and hydrological support, the primary strategies of ecological management included limited development, development optimization, and exploitation.

Based on the grain yield data of regional trials with 233 winter- and spring wheat cultivars (lines) in rainfed farmlands at 82 locations in four subregions of China in 2003-2009, this paper studied the experiment precision (EP), variety comparison precision (VCP), and testing-site discrimination ability and representativeness of national regional trials, and comprehensively evaluated the trial environment. The results showed that in one-location-one-year experiments, the average coefficient of variation (CV) and the relative least significant difference (RLSD) were 6.1% and 10.5%, respectively, and in multi-location-one-year experiments, the CV was all within 8.2%, and the CV and RLSD were mostly well controlled, indicating that the trials had a high precision. The testing-site discrimination ability was the highest in the northwest spring wheat subregion, but showed less difference in the other subregions. The testing-site representativeness was the best in the northeast spring wheat subregion, and the worst in the northwest spring wheat subregion. On the basis of the comprehensive consideration of the testing-site discrimination ability and representativeness, and by using the parameters of the environmental comprehensive assessment (r(g)h) of GGE model, it was shown that the proportion of the ideal trial locations for wheat in our rainfed farmlands was only 32.4%. Among the wheat production regions, the proportions of the ideal trial locations were in the order of northwest spring wheat subregion (40.9%) > northeast spring wheat subregion (33.3%) > Huang-Huai winter wheat subregion (30.4%) > north winter wheat subregion