Search

The change in soil microbial biomass (SMB) content and its direct links to soil organic matter (SOM) and environmental factors are not well understood for high-elevation regions. Therefore, this re...

Biocrusts (biological soil crusts), which impact plant community characteristics and soil properties, are an important feature of soil surface in terrestrial ecosystem and called ecosystem engineer...

The effects of grazing on the soil carbon of an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau were studied. The aims were to estimate the effects of grazing on the spatial and vertical distribution ...

Wildlife has been considered the main source of novel viruses causing emerging infectious diseases. Marmota himalayana is endemic to the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, China. Here, based on a high-throughput method using Illumina RNA sequencing, we studied the RNA virome of M. himalayana and discovered multiple novel viruses, especially picobirnaviruses (PBVs), which have a bi-segmented genome and belong to the family Picobirnaviridae. A total of 63% of the viral contigs corresponded to PBVs, comprising 274 segment 1 and 56 segment 2 sequences. Unexpectedly, four unsegmented PBV genomes were also detected and confirmed by PCR and resequencing. According to the phylogenetic analysis, the following nine PBV assortment types are proposed: C1:GI, C2:GIV, C4:GI, C4:GV, C5:GI, C7:GI, C8:GIV, C8:GV and C8:GII. We hypothesize a model of segmentation for the PBV genome, mediated by a 6-bp direct repeat sequence, GAAAGG. The model is supported by detection of the segmentation-associated sequence GAAAGG not only in the 5′ untranslated regions of segment 1 (221 in 289) and segment 2 (57 in 80) of bi-segmented PBVs but also in the 5′ untranslated regions and junction sequences between the capsid and RdRp genes of unsegmented PBVs. Therefore, with RNA sequencing, we found an unexpected biodiversity of PBVs in M. himalayana, indicating that M. himalayana is a special host for PBVs. We also proposed a putative model of how bi-segmented PBVs could be converted into unsegmented PBVs, which sheds new light on the processes of RNA virus genome evolution.

Compared with traditional methods to investigate spatial and temporal precipitation patterns over mountainous regions with limited meteorological observations, satellite-based precipitation estimat...

The Gammaproteobacteria are widely and abundantly distributed in various environments, and they play important roles in the geochemical cycles of biogenic elements (e.g., C, N and S) in the ecosyst...

Four up-to-date daily cloud-free snow products – IMS (Interactive Multisensor Snow products), MOD-SSM/I (combination of the MODIS and SSM/I snow products), MOD-B (Blending method basing on the MODI...

This study provides a chloroplast genome of Poa poophagorum. The complete cp genome was135,664 bp in length with typical quadripartite structure, containing a pair of inverted repeats (IR) of 21,55...

The depths of snow in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau simulated by 19 phase five of the Coupled Model Inter-Comparison Project (CMIP5) models are assessed in comparison with the observation ones from passive microwave satellite remote-sensing (PMSR) and 72 weather stations. The annual regional mean snow depths (ARMSDs) from 1851 to 2005 indicate decreases for most of the models but slight increases for CMCC-CM, FGOALS-g2, and CanESM2. The simulated ARMSD anomalies vary from -10 cm to 20 cm, and the amplitudes exhibit obvious decreases over the recent 50 years. In the period from 1986 to 2005, the spatial distributions of the annual mean snow depth (AMSD) simulated by MRI-CGCM3, CCSM4, CESM1-BGC, CESM1-CAM5, and CESM1-WACCM are quite similar to those from the PMSR observations. But the maximum and mean AMSD values simulated by all 19 models are much larger than those observed by PMSR. The inter-annual variation of snow, which occurs primarily in the Middle and East Tibetan Plateau, is simulated relati...

Myricaria prostrata is a critically endangered plant mainly distributed in Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau and adjacent areas. In the current research, we report the complete chloroplast genome sequence of M. prostrata. The total length of the genome was 155,230 bp with the GC content of 36.39%. 129 genes including 84 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes were annotated. Maximum-likelihood (ML) analysis revealed that Myricaria forms a clade with Tamarix which showed close relationship with the clade of Hololachna and Reaumuria.

Elymus nutans is an alpine plant, which plays an important role in maintaining ecological system and the development of animal husbandry in the Tibetan region of China. However, the population of w...

Based on a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and remote sensing data of snow cover, we analyzed the variation in NDVI in relation to trends in snow cover and vegetation of the source regions of large rivers on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We then calculated the relationship between snow cover duration, snow depth, and NDVI to reveal the effect of snow cover change on vegetation growth on a regional scale. The results show that both snow depth and duration tend to reduce gradually from northeast to southwest on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Furthermore, snow cover duration (snow depth > 0 cm) has high interannual fluctuation and generally shows an increasing trend (P 0.05) from 1980 to 2004. The snow cover characteristics (duration and depth) are insignificantly corr...

(2007). Perspectives on Environmental Study of Response to Climatic and Land Cover/Land Use Change over the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: an Introduction. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research: Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 631-634.