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A full understanding of the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine-mediated antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 circulating variants will inform vaccine effectiveness and vaccination development strategies. Here, we offer insights into the inactivated vaccine-induced antibody responses after prime-boost vaccination at both the polyclonal and monoclonal levels. We characterized the VDJ sequence of 118 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and found that 20 neutralizing mAbs showed varied potency and breadth against a range of variants including XBB.1.5, BQ.1.1, and BN.1. Bispecific antibodies (bsAbs) based on nonoverlapping mAbs exhibited enhanced neutralizing potency and breadth against the most antibody-evasive strains, such as XBB.1.5, BQ.1.1, and BN.1. The passive transfer of mAbs or their bsAb effectively protected female hACE2 transgenic mice from challenge with an infectious Delta or Omicron BA.2 variant. The neutralization mechanisms of these antibodies were determined by structural characterization. Overall, a broad spectrum of potent and distinct neutralizing antibodies can be induced in individuals immunized with the SARS-CoV-2 inactivated vaccine BBIBP-CorV, suggesting the application potential of inactivated vaccines and these antibodies for preventing infection by SARS-CoV-2 circulating variants.

Understanding the changes of the near-wellbore pore pressure associated with the reservoir depletion is greatly significant for the development of ultra-deep natural gas reservoirs. However, there is still a great challenge for the fluid flow and geomechanics in the reservoir depletion. In this study, a fully coupled model was developed to simulate the near-wellbore and reservoir physics caused by pore pressure in ultra-deep natural gas reservoirs. The stress-dependent porosity and permeability models as well as geomechanics deformation induced by pore pressure were considered in this model, and the COMSOL Multiphysics was used to implement and solve the problem. The numerical model was validated by the reservoir depletion from Dabei gas field in China, and the effects of reservoir properties and production parameters on gas production, near-wellbore pore pressure and permeability evolution were discussed. The results show that the gas production rate increases nonlinearly with the increase in porosity, permeability and Young’s modulus. The lower reservoir porosity will result in the greater near-wellbore pore pressure and the larger rock deformation. The permeability changes have little effect on geomechanics deformation while it affects greatly the gas production rate in the reservoir depletion. With the increase in the gas production rate, the near-wellbore pore pressure and permeability decrease rapidly and tend to balance with time. The reservoir rocks with higher deformation capacity will cause the greater near-wellbore pore pressure.

Increased nitrogen (N) deposition and changes in precipitation seasonality can greatly impact soil microbial communities in tropical/subtropical forests. Although knowledge about the effects of a single factor on soil microbial communities is growing rapidly, little is understood about the interactive effects of these two environmental change factors. In this study, we investigated the responses of soil bacterial and fungal communities to the simulated environmental changes (nitrogen addition, precipitation seasonality change, and their combination) in a subtropical forest in South China. The interaction between N and water treatments was significant for affecting some soil physicochemical properties (such as pH, soil water and NO3 − contents). Fungi were more susceptible to treatment than bacteria in a variety of community traits (alpha, beta diversity, and network topological features). The N and water treatments act antagonistically to affect fungal alpha diversity, and the interaction effect was detected significant for the dry season. The topological features of the meta-community (containing both bacteria and fungi) network overrode the alpha and beta diversity of bacterial or fungal communities in explaining the variation of soil enzyme activities. The associations between Ascomycota fungi and Gammaproteobacteria or Alphaproteobacteria might be important in mediating the inter-kingdom interactions. In summary, our results suggested that fungal communities were more sensitive to N addition and precipitation seasonality change (and their interaction) than bacterial communities, and the treatments’ effects were more prominent in the dry season, which may have great consequences in soil processes and ecosystem functions in subtropical forests.

Massive vanadium additions as hard phases in powder metallurgy high-speed steels (PM HSS) lead to higher cost and bad machinability. In this study, ultrahigh alloy PM HSS with CPM121 (10W−5Mo−4Cr−10V−9Co, wt.%) as the basic composition, was directly compacted and activation sintered with near-full density (>99.0%) using pre-oxidized and ball-mixed element and carbide powders. Niobium-alloyed steels (w(V)+w(Nb)=10 wt.%) show higher hardness and wear resistance, superior secondary-hardening ability and temper resistance. But excess niobium addition (>5 wt.%) leads to coarsened carbides and deteriorated toughness. EPMA results proved that niobium tends to distribute in MC carbides and forces element W to form M6C and WC carbides. Further, the role of rotary forging on properties of niobium-alloyed steels (S3) was researched. After rotary forging with deformation of 40%, the bending strength and fracture toughness of niobium-alloyed steels could be further improved by 20.74% and 43.86% compared with those of sample S3 without rotary forging, respectively.

Excess N deposition has aroused concerns about its negative impacts on forest ecosystems. A two-year study was conducted to assess the responses of stomatal conductance (Gc) and carbon assimilation (Anet) of dominant tree species (Liquidambar formosana, Quercus acutissima and Quercus variabilis) to increased N deposition at a canopy and understory N additions experimental platform in a temperate deciduous broadleaved forest. Five treatments included N addition of 25 and 50 kg ha−1 y−1 onto either the canopy (C25 and C50) or the understory (U25 and U50), and a control treatment (CK, without N addition). Our results showed that neither canopy nor understory N addition had an impact on carboxylation capacity (Vcmax), the light saturated rate of electron transport (Jmax) and leaf-level net assimilation (AnL) of the studied tree species. Higher concentrations of N addition (U50 and C50 treatments) exerted negative impacts on Gc and Anet of L. formosana and Quercus acutissima under lower precipitation conditions, while lower concentrations of N addition (U25 and C25 treatments) had minimal impacts on overall ecophysiological function. The U50 treatment increased tree water use efficiency (WUE) of L. formosana in the second experimental year. Canopy and understory N addition generated differential effects on forest vegetation. The traditional approach with understory addition could not fully reflect the effects of increased N deposition on the canopy-associated assimilation processes.

Elevated atmospheric N deposition has been well documented to enhance fine root production in N-limited temperate forests, but how fine roots respond to N deposition in N-rich tropical and subtropical forests remains poorly understood. The sequential coring and minirhizotron methods were applied to quantify fine root biomass, production, and turnover of a N-rich but P-limited subtropical forest in southern China and to assess the responses of these root variables to a gradient of N additions (control (0), low-N (35), medium-N (70), and high-N (105 kg N ha−1 year−1)) during the first 3 years of experimentation. The high- and medium-N additions significantly reduced fine root diameter by about 30% but increased the specific root length by 20–105%, i.e., fine roots became thinner and longer under the experimental N addition. Both low- and medium-N additions generally stimulated fine root production (10–88%) and turnover (3–40%), whereas high-N suppressed them by 32–70% and 8–54%, respectively, varying with sampling season and estimation method. The stimulatory effects were presumably ascribed to the increased fine root growth for P acquisition, the suppressive effect, to the deleterious damage to the root health and micronutrient availability. Overall, the N effects were more pronounced in the surface (0–10 cm) than in the deeper (10–40 cm) soil layers and for the first-order than the higher-order fine roots. Our results indicate that lower-order absorptive fine roots are responsive to elevated N deposition, and complex responses could emerge due to the interactive influences of the N deposition rate, seasonality, and soil depth.

The understanding of water adsorption and desorption behavior in the shale rocks is of great significance in the reserve estimation, wellbore stability and hydrocarbon extraction in the shale gas reservoirs. However, the water sorption behavior in the shales remains unclear. In this study, water vapor adsorption/desorption isotherms of the Longmaxi shale in the Sichuan Basin, China were conducted at various temperatures (30 °C, 60 °C) and a relative pressure up to 0.97 to understand the water sorption behavior. Then the effects of temperature and shale properties were analyzed, and the water adsorption, hysteresis, saturation and capillary pressure were discussed. The results indicate that water adsorption isotherms of the Longmaxi shale exhibit the type II characteristics. The water molecules initially adsorb on the shale particle/pore surfaces at low relative pressure while the capillary condensation dominates at high relative pressure. Temperature favors the water sorption in the shales at high relative pressure, and the GAB isotherm model is found to be suitable for describe the water adsorption/desorption behavior. The high organic carbon and full bedding are beneficial to water adsorption in the shales while the calcite inhibits the behavior. There exists the hysteresis between water adsorption and desorption at the whole relative pressure, which suggests that the depletion of condensed water from smaller capillary pores is more difficult than that from larger pores, and the chemical interaction contributes to the hysteresis loop for water sorption. The capillary pressure in the shales can be up to the order of several hundreds of MPa, and thus the desorption of water from the shales may not be as easy as the water adsorption due to the high capillary pressure, which results in water retention behavior in the shale gas reservoirs. These results can provide insights into a better understanding of water sorption behavior in the shale so as to optimize extraction conditions and predict gas productivity in the shale gas reservoirs.

New methods capable of effecting cyclization, and forming novel three-dimensional structures while maintaining favourable physicochemical properties are needed to facilitate the development of cyclic peptide-based drugs that can engage challenging biological targets, such as protein-protein interactions. Here, we report a highly efficient and generally applicable strategy for constructing new types of peptide macrocycles using palladium-catalysed intramolecular C(sp3)-H arylation reactions. Easily accessible linear peptide precursors of simple and versatile design can be selectively cyclized at the side chains of either aromatic or modified non-aromatic amino acid units to form various cyclophane-braced peptide cycles. This strategy provides a powerful tool to address the long-standing challenge of size- and composition-dependence in peptide macrocyclization, and generates novel peptide macrocycles with uniquely buttressed backbones and distinct loop-type three-dimensional structures. Preliminary cell proliferation screening of the pilot library revealed a potent lead compound with selective cytotoxicity toward proliferative Myc-dependent cancer cell lines.

Gas production from shale gas reservoirs plays a significant role in satisfying increasing energy demands. Compared with conventional sandstone and carbonate reservoirs, shale gas reservoirs are characterized by extremely low porosity, ultra-low permeability and high clay content. Slip flow, diffusion, adsorption and desorption are the primary gas transport processes in shale matrix, while Darcy flow is restricted to fractures. Understanding methane diffusion and adsorption, and gas flow and equilibrium in the low-permeability matrix of shale is crucial for shale formation evaluation and for predicting gas production. Modeling of diffusion in low-permeability shale rocks requires use of the Dusty gas model (DGM) rather than Fick’s law. The DGM is incorporated in the TOUGH2 module EOS7C-ECBM, a modified version of EOS7C that simulates multicomponent gas mixture transport in porous media. Also included in EOS7C-ECBM is the extended Langmuir model for adsorption and desorption of gases. In this study, a column shale model was constructed to simulate methane diffusion and adsorption through shale rocks. The process of binary $$\hbox {CH}_{4}{-}\hbox {N}_{2}$$ diffusion and adsorption was analyzed. A sensitivity study was performed to investigate the effects of pressure, temperature and permeability on diffusion and adsorption in shale rocks. The results show that methane gas diffusion and adsorption in shale is a slow process of dynamic equilibrium, which can be illustrated by the slope of a curve in $$\hbox {CH}_{4}$$ mass variation. The amount of adsorption increases with the pressure increase at the low pressure, and the mass change by gas diffusion will decrease due to the decrease in the compressibility factor of the gas. With the elevated temperature, the gas molecules move faster and then the greater gas diffusion rates make the process duration shorter. The gas diffusion rate decreases with the permeability decrease, and there is a limit of gas diffusion if the permeability is less than $$1.0\,\times \,10^{-15}\, \hbox { m}^{2}$$ . The results can provide insights for a better understanding of methane diffusion and adsorption in the shale rocks so as to optimize gas production performance of shale gas reservoirs.

A novel technology which was characterized by the vacuum solid state sintering was developed for powder metallurgy high speed steels production. During sintering, both the WC and Mo2C reacted with Fe and transformed to W and Mo rich M6C carbides which were the common hard phases in high speed steels. Also, a high number of W, Mo and Fe were dissolved in VC, forming the MC carbides. The densification of the material mainly relied on the solubility effect during the M6C and MC carbides formation. By alloying with a 0.1 wt% of LaB6 to the steel, the bending strength and the fracture toughness were improved from 3290 MPa and 25.6 MPam1/2 to 4018 MPa and 29.4 MPam1/2, respectively. The TEM analysis demonstrated three types of reaction products by the LaB6 addition: the amorphous phase, the core-shell structure and the La2O3 phase. The impurity elements such as the Mg, Al, Si, S, Ca, and O were absorbed following the LaB6 addition. Moreover, the deoxidization effect caused by the LaB6 addition promoted the sintering at a high-temperature period which contributed to the bending strength and fracture toughness improvement.

Precipitation changes such as more frequent drought and altered precipitation seasonality may impose substantial impacts on the structure and functioning of forest ecosystems. A better understanding of tree responses to precipitation changes can provide fundamental information for the conservation and management of forests under future climate regimes. We conducted a 2-year seasonal rainfall redistribution experiment to assess the responses of tree transpiration and growth to manipulated precipitation changes in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest. Three precipitation treatments were administered including a drier dry season and wetter wet season treatment (DD), an extended dry season and wetter wet season treatment (ED), and an ambient control treatment, with the total amount of annual rainfall being kept the same among the three treatments. Our results showed that the DD and ED treatments reduced daily transpiration of Schima superba by 8–16 and 13–25%, respectively. The ED treatment also reduced the DBH increment of larger S. superba individuals. In contrast, neither treatment showed obvious effects on the transpiration and DBH increment of another dominant species Michelia macclurei. However, the transpiration of both species showed clear inter-annual differences between the 2 years with contrasting annual rainfall (2094 vs 1582 mm). S. superba had a lower transpiration-to-precipitation ratio (T/P) compared to M. macclurei and showed decreased sensitivities to total solar radiation and vapor pressure deficit under the DD and ED treatments. These results indicate the deep-rooted S. superba may be suppressed with a lower ability to obtain water and assimilate carbon compared to the shallow-rooted M. macclurei under the precipitation seasonality changes, which could potentially cause shifts in species dominance within the forest community.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the precipitation changes on soil, microbial and root respirations of switchgrass soils, and the relationships between soil respiration and plant growth, soil moisture and temperature. A mesocosm experiment was conducted with five precipitation treatments over two years in a greenhouse in Nashville, Tennessee. The treatments included ambient precipitation, −50%, −33%, +33% and +50% of ambient precipitation. Soil, microbial, and root respirations were quantified during the growing seasons. Mean soil and root respirations in the +50% treatment were the highest (2.48 and 0.93 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1, respectively) among all treatments. Soil microbial respiration contributed more to soil respiration, and had higher precipitation sensitivity mostly than root respiration. Increases in precipitation mostly enhanced microbial respiration while decreases in precipitation reduced both microbial and root respirations. Across precipitation treatments, soil respiration was significantly influenced by soil moisture, soil temperature, and aboveground biomass. Our results showed that microbial respiration was more sensitive to precipitation changes, and precipitation regulated the response of soil respiration to soil temperature. The information generated in this study will be useful for model simulation of soil respiration in switchgrass fields under precipitation changes.

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation has significant effects on ecosystems, environments, and human health, as well as atmospheric processes and climate change. Two ultraviolet radiation datasets are described in this paper. One contains hourly observations of UV radiation measured at 40 Chinese Ecosystem Research Network stations from 2005 to 2015. CUV3 broadband radiometers were used to observe the UV radiation, with an accuracy of 5%, which meets the World Meteorology Organization's measurement standards. The extremum method was used to control the quality of the measured datasets. The other dataset contains daily cumulative UV radiation estimates that were calculated using an all-sky estimation model combined with a hybrid model. The reconstructed daily UV radiation data span from 1961 to 2014. The mean absolute bias error and root-mean-square error are smaller than 30% at most stations, and most of the mean bias error values are negative, which indicates underestimation of the UV radiation intensity. These datasets can improve our basic knowledge of the spatial and temporal variations in UV radiation. Additionally, these datasets can be used in studies of potential ozone formation and atmospheric oxidation, as well as simulations of ecological processes.

How soil microbial communities respond to precipitation seasonality change remains poorly understood, particularly for warm-humid forest ecosystems experiencing clear dry-wet cycles. We conducted a field precipitation manipulation experiment in a subtropical forest to explore the impacts of reducing dry-season rainfall but increasing wet-season rainfall on soil microbial community composition and enzyme activities. A 67% reduction of throughfall during the dry season decreased soil water content (SWC) by 17–24% (P

Gas flow behavior in porous media with micro- and nanoscale pores has always been attracted great attention. Gas transport mechanism in such pores is a complex problem, which includes continuous flow, slip flow and transition flow. In this study, the microtubes of quartz microcapillary and nanopores alumina membrane were used, and the gas flow measurements through the microtubes and nanopores with the diameters ranging from 6.42 μm to 12.5 nm were conducted. The experimental results show that the gas flow characteristics are in rough agreement with the Hagen-Poiseuille (H-P) equation in microscale. However, the flux of gas flow through the nanopores is larger than the H-P equation by more than an order of magnitude, and thus the H-P equation considerably underestimates gas flux. The Knudsen diffusion and slip flow coexist in the nanoscale pores and their contributions to the gas flux increase as the diameter decreases. The slip flow increases with the decrease in diameter, and the slip length decreases with the increase in driving pressure. Furthermore, the experimental gas flow resistance is less than the theoretical value in the nanopores and the flow resistance decreases along with the decrease in diameter, which explains the phenomenon of flux increase and the occurrence of a considerable slip length in nanoscale. These results can provide insights into a better understanding of gas flow in micro- and nanoscale pores and enable us to exactly predict and actively control gas slip.

Fractured carbonate gas reservoirs feature high heterogeneity and difficulty in development, and the invasion of edge and bottom water intensifies the complexity of exploitation of such gas reservoirs. In this study, reservoir cores with a permeability of 0.001 mD, 0.1 mD, and 10 mD were selected by analyzing the fracture characteristics of the Longwangmiao gas reservoir, and water invasion in fractured carbonate gas reservoirs with edge and bottom water was simulated using an experimental system to investigate the effects of different parameters on gas reservoir exploitation. The results show that the larger the water volume ratio, the more serious the water invasion and the lower the recovery factor. But water aquifer did not strongly affect the recovery factor once the water aquifer exceeded a critical value. The higher the gas production rate, the faster the water invasion and the smaller the recovery factor. The recovery factor peaked when the gas production rate was equivalent to the gas supply capacity of the matrix to the fractures. For gas reservoirs with the overall permeability, the higher the matrix permeability, the higher the recovery factor. Although an appropriate fracturing scale was able to enhance the recovery factor when its matrix permeability was low, an excessive fracturing scale would cause water to flow along the fractures at a rapid rate, which further caused a sharp decline in the recovery factor. With the increase of matrix permeability, fractures exerted a decreasing effect on gas reservoirs. These results can provide insights into a better understanding of water invasion and the effects of reservoir properties so as to optimize gas production in fractured carbonate gas reservoirs.

There is a pressing need to develop earth system models (ESMs), in which ecosystem processes are adequately represented, to quantify carbon-climate feedbacks. In particular, explicit representation of the effects of microbial activities on soil organic carbon decomposition has been slow in ESM development. Here we revised an existing Q10-based heterotrophic respiration (RH) algorithm of a large-scale biogeochemical model, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM), by incorporating the algorithms of Dual Arrhenius and Michaelis-Menten kinetics and microbial-enzyme interactions. The microbial physiology enabled model (MIC-TEM) was then applied to quantify historical and future carbon dynamics of forest ecosystems in the conterminous United States. Simulations indicate that warming has a weaker positive effect on RH than that traditional Q10 model has. Our results demonstrate that MIC-TEM is superior to traditional TEM in reproducing historical carbon dynamics. More importantly, the future trend of soil carbon accumulation simulated with MIC-TEM is more reasonable than TEM did and is generally consistent with soil warming experimental studies. The revised model estimates that regional GPP is 2.48 Pg C year−1 (2.02 to 3.03 Pg C year−1) and NEP is 0.10 Pg C year−1 (−0.20 to 0.32 Pg C year−1) during 2000–2005. Both models predict that the conterminous United States forest ecosystems are carbon sinks under two future climate scenarios during the 21st century. This study suggests that terrestrial ecosystem models should explicitly consider the microbial ecophysiological effects on soil carbon decomposition to adequately quantify forest ecosystem carbon fluxes at regional scales.

The problem of water coning into the Tarim fractured sandstone gas reservoirs becomes one of the major concerns in terms of productivity, increased operating costs and environmental effects. Water coning is a phenomenon caused by the imbalance between gravity and viscous forces around the completion interval. There are several controllable and uncontrollable parameters influencing this problem. In order to simulate the key parameters affecting the water coning phenomenon, a model was developed to represent a single well with an underlying aquifer using the fractured sandstone gas reservoir data of the A-Well in Dina gas fields. The parametric study was performed by varying six properties individually over a representative range. The results show that matrix permeability, well penetration (especially fracture permeability), vertical-to-horizontal permeability ratio, aquifer size and gas production rate have considerable effect on water coning in the fractured gas reservoirs. Thus, investigation of the effective parameters is necessary to understand the mechanism of water coning phenomenon. Simulation of the problem helps to optimize the conditions in which the breakthrough of water coning is delayed.

Soil heterotrophic respiration (R h, an indicator of soil organic carbon decomposition) is an important carbon efflux of terrestrial ecosystems. However, the dynamics of soil R h and its empirical relations with climatic factors have not been well understood. We incubated soils of three subtropical forests at five temperatures (10, 17, 24, 31, and 38 °C) and five moistures (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100% water holding capacity (WHC)) over 90 days. R h was measured throughout the course of the incubation. Three types of models (log-linear, exponential, and power model) were fitted to the measurements and evaluated based on the coefficient of determination (r 2) and Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) of the model. Further regression analysis was used to derive the empirical relations between model parameters and the two climatic factors. Among the three models, the power function model (R h = R 1 t −k ) performed the best in fitting the descending trend of soil R h with incubation time (r 2 > 0.69 for 26 of 30 models). Both R 1 and k generally increased linearly with soil temperature but varied quadratically with soil moisture in the three forest soils. This study demonstrated that the power function model was much more accurate than the exponential decay model in describing the decomposition dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC) in mineral soils of subtropical forests. The empirical relations and parameter values derived from this incubation study may be incorporated into process-based ecosystem models to simulate R h responses to climate changes.

This study investigated the effects of increased sunlight on photooxidation of rice leaf mutant 812HS and its wild-type 812S under field conditions. Light is important for plant growth and development. However, when the absorbed energy exceeds the capacity of utilization of photosynthesis, it leads to the accumulation of singlet oxygen molecules and other reactive oxygen species, which causes oxidative damage. Chlorophyll a fluorescence was applied to examine photosystem II photochemistry. The results demonstrated that intensive light had a negative influence on plant photosynthetic processes. However, the electron transport chain was inhibited and energy dissipation was increased, which can minimize photooxidative damage to the optical system. Meanwhile, proteomic analysis showed that the differential expression of proteins in response to photooxidation participated in multiple pathways, including ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) large subunit, RuBisCO large chain precursor, RuBisCO activase, flavodoxin-like quinone reductase 1, l-ascorbate peroxidase S, oxygen-evolving complex protein 1, and glycolate oxidase. The results indicated that photooxidation induced a response in the rice via the stress-related pathway. The aforementioned proteins, identified by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and mass spectrometry (MS), may be very useful in comprehending how plants respond to photooxidation and can be used as characteristics of stress-induced signals. The results of chlorophyll fluorescence parameter analysis demonstrated the negative influence of intense light on plant photosynthetic processes. This was evidenced by the dissipation of excessive energy and the suppression of the electron transport chain to minimize photooxidative damage to the proteins. Future studies should compare the proteomic difference with parallel gene expression and metabolite profiles.

Isothermal sections of the Al–Zn–Bi–Fe quaternary system at 600 °C with fixed Al content of 75 at.% and fixed Zn content of 50 at.% were determined by scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy and x-ray powder diffraction analysis. One four-phase region and four four-phase regions were identified in the 75 at.% Al and 50 at.% Zn sections, respectively. The Bi-poor L1 phase and Bi-rich L2 phase are in equilibrium with (Al), FeAl3, Fe2Al5, α-Fe, and δ, respectively. No new quaternary phase was found in these two sections. Bi is almost insoluble in all Fe–Al and Fe–Zn compounds.

Experimentation in landscape ecology is widely conducted using diverse approaches to answer a broad range of questions. By assessing the response to controlled manipulations alternate hypotheses can be clearly refuted, model parameters quantified, and conditions are often ripe for unexpected insights. Results from landscape experiments complement the many well developed observational and modeling approaches more commonly used in landscape ecology. To better understand how landscape experimentation has been conducted and to identify future research directions, we reviewed and organized the diversity of experiments. We identified fifteen distinct landscape experiment types, which we categorized into four broad groups including (I) identifying landscape structure, (II) identifying how ecological processes vary within existing landscapes, (III) identifying how landscape structure influences ecological processes, and (IV) identifying landscape pattern formation factors. Experiment types vary along axes of scalable to real landscapes and generalizability, suitability for analysis through traditional experimental design and flexibility of experimental setup, and complexity of implementation and resource requirements. The next generation of experiments are benefiting from more explicit inclusion of scaling theories and tighter coupling between experiments and cyberinfrastructure. Future experimental opportunities for landscape ecologists include expanded collaborations among experiments, better representations of microbial-soil structure relationships at microscales, and direct evaluations of landscape interactions with global changes. The history, current practice, and future needs of landscape ecological research strongly support an expanded role of experimental approaches that complements the rich observational and modeling strengths of the field.

The EBI2 receptor (Epstein–Barr virus-induced gene 2, also known as GPR183) was recently shown to be linked to autoimmune disease, and is a critical regulator of the humoral immune response. It is a G-protein-coupled receptor, and its natural ligand has been unknown. Two groups now bring an end to the 'orphan' status of this receptor with identification of specific oxysterols as its natural ligands. The most potent ligand and activator is 7a,25-dihydroxycholesterol, and the EBI2–oxysterol signalling pathway has an important role in the adaptive immune response. Epstein–Barr virus-induced gene 2 (EBI2, also known as GPR183) is a G-protein-coupled receptor that is required for humoral immune responses; polymorphisms in the receptor have been associated with inflammatory autoimmune diseases1,2,3. The natural ligand for EBI2 has been unknown. Here we describe the identification of 7α,25-dihydroxycholesterol (also called 7α,25-OHC or 5-cholesten-3β,7α,25-triol) as a potent and selective agonist of EBI2. Functional activation of human EBI2 by 7α,25-OHC and closely related oxysterols was verified by monitoring second messenger readouts and saturable, high-affinity radioligand binding. Furthermore, we find that 7α,25-OHC and closely related oxysterols act as chemoattractants for immune cells expressing EBI2 by directing cell migration in vitro and in vivo. A critical enzyme required for the generation of 7α,25-OHC is cholesterol 25-hydroxylase (CH25H)4. Similar to EBI2 receptor knockout mice, mice deficient in CH25H fail to position activated B cells within the spleen to the outer follicle and mount a reduced plasma cell response after an immune challenge. This demonstrates that CH25H generates EBI2 biological activity in vivo and indicates that the EBI2–oxysterol signalling pathway has an important role in the adaptive immune response.

Lateral flows in landscape mosaics represent a fundamentally important process in landscape ecology, but are still poorly understood in general. For example, windblown litter nutrient transfer across a landscape has rarely been studied from an ecosystem perspective. In this study we measured the litter nutrient transfer from an Acacia mangium plantation to a Dimocarpus longan orchard in an agroforestry landscape for 3 years from January 2002 to December 2004. About 11% of the total litterfall of the acacia plantation were transported to the longan orchard annually, accounting for ca. 9–59% of the total litter nutrient input of the longan orchard. The windblown litter transfer showed high spatial variation mainly caused by wind speed and directions. Slope positions 5 m away from the source acacia plantation received significantly greater amount of allochthonous acacia litter than those 10 m away, and the northwest-facing slope of the longan orchard received 2 to 3-fold more litter than the southeast- and south-facing slopes because of the prevailing southeasterly wind in the region. To explore how different management practices may influence the litterfall, leaf production, and soil nutrient status of the two ecosystems, we developed a Meta-Ecosystem Litter Transfer (MELT) model to simulate the processes of litter-related transformation (production, deposition, and decomposition) and transfer (wind- and management-driven movement). Our simulation results suggest that less than 30% of acacia litter should be transferred to the longan orchard in order for the acacia plantation to sustain itself and maximize production of the longan. Connectivity of nutrient flow between adjacent ecosystems as shown here leads to a functional meta-ecosystem with higher landscape-scale production of ecosystem services. That is, managing this connectivity through landscape design or active litter transfers can lead to large changes in overall landscape functioning and service production.

Urban ecosystems are profoundly modified by human activities and thereby provide a unique ‘‘natural laboratory‘‘ to study potential ecosystem responses to anthropogenic environmental changes. Because urban environments are now affected by urban heat islands, carbon dioxide domes, and high-level nitrogen deposition, to some extent they portend the future of the global ecosystem. Urbanization in the metropolitan region of Phoenix, Arizona (USA) has resulted in pronounced changes in air temperature (Tair), atmospheric CO2 concentration, and nitrogen deposition (Ndep). In this study, we used a process-based ecosystem model to explore how the Larrea tridentata dominated Sonoran Desert ecosystem may respond to these urbanization-induced environmental changes. We found that water availability controls the magnitude and pattern of responses of the desert ecosystem to elevated CO2, air temperature, N deposition and their combinations. Urbanization effects were much stronger in wet years than normal and dry years. At the ecosystem level, aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and soil organic matter (SOM) both increased with increasing CO2 and Ndep individually and in combinations with changes in Tair. Soil N (Nsoil) responded positively to increased N deposition and air temperature, but negatively to elevated CO2. Correspondingly, ANPP and SOM of the Larrea ecosystem decreased along the urban‐suburban‐ wildland gradient, whereas Nsoil peaked in the suburban area. At the plant functional type (FT) level, ANPP generally responded positively to elevated CO2 and Ndep, but negatively to increased Tair .C 3 winter annuals showed a greater ANPP response to higher CO2 levels (>420 ppm) than shrubs, which could lead over the long term to changes in species composition, because competition among functional groups is strong for resources such as soil water and nutrients. Overall, the combined effects of the three environmental factors depended on rainfall variability and nonlinear interactions within and between plant functional types and environmental factors. We intend to use these simulation results as working hypotheses to guide our field experiments and observations. Experimental testing of these hypotheses through this process should improve our understanding of urban ecosystems under increasing environmental stresses.

Tropical forests continue to vanish rapidly, but few long-term studies have ever examined if and how the lost forests can be restored. Based on a 45-year restoration study in south China, we found that a tropical rain forest, once completely destroyed, could not recover naturally without deliberate restoration efforts. We identified two kinds of thresholds that must be overcome with human ameliorative measures before the ecosystem was able to recover. The first threshold was imposed primarily by extreme physical conditions such as exceedingly high surface temperature and impoverished soil, while the second was characterized by a critical level of biodiversity and a landscape context that accommodates dispersal and colonization processes. Our three treatment catchments (un-restored barren land, single-species plantation, and mixed-forest stand) exhibited dramatically different changes in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning over 4 decades. The mixed forest, having the highest level of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, possesses several major properties of tropical rain forest. These findings may have important implications for the restoration of many severely degraded or lost tropical forest ecosystems.

Increasing atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition could profoundly impact community structure and ecosystem functions in forests. However, conventional experiments with understory addition of N (UAN) largely neglect canopy-associated biota and processes and therefore may not realistically simulate atmospheric N deposition to generate reliable impacts on forest ecosystems. Here we, for the first time, designed a novel experiment with canopy addition of N (CAN) vs. UAN and reviewed the merits and pitfalls of the two approaches. The following hypotheses will be tested: i) UAN overestimates the N addition effects on understory and soil processes but underestimates those on canopy-associated biota and processes, ii) with low-level N addition, CAN favors canopy tree species and canopy-dwelling biota and promotes the detritus food web and iii) with high-level N addition, CAN suppresses canopy tree species and other biota and favors rhizosphere food web. As a long-term comprehensive program, this experiment will provide opportunities for multidisciplinary collaborations, including biogeochemistry, microbiology, zoology and plant science to examine forest ecosystem responses to atmospheric N deposition.

While ecologists are well aware that spatial heterogeneity is scale-dependent, a general understanding of scaling relationships of spatial pattern is still lacking. One way to improve this understanding is to systematically examine how pattern indices change with scale in real landscapes of different kinds. This study, therefore, was designed to investigate how a suite of commonly used landscape metrics respond to changing grain size, extent, and the direction of analysis (or sampling) using several different landscapes in North America. Our results showed that the responses of the 19 landscape metrics fell into three general categories: Type I metrics showed predictable responses with changing scale, and their scaling relations could be represented by simple scaling equations (linear, power-law, or logarithmic functions); Type II metrics exhibited staircase-like responses that were less predictable; and Type III metrics behaved erratically in response to changing scale, suggesting no consistent scaling relations. In general, the effect of changing grain size was more predictable than that of changing extent. Type I metrics represent those landscape features that can be readily and accurately extrapolated or interpolated across spatial scales, whereas Type II and III metrics represent those that require more explicit consideration of idiosyncratic details for successful scaling. To adequately quantify spatial heterogeneity, the metric-scalograms (the response curves of metrics to changing scale), instead of single-scale measures, seem necessary.