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Grime's competitive, stress‐tolerant, ruderal (CSR) theory predicts a shift in plant communities from ruderal to stress‐tolerant strategies during secondary succession. However, this fundamental tenet lacks empirical validation using long‐term continuous successional data. Utilizing a 60‐year longitudinal data of old‐field succession, we investigated the community‐level dynamics of plant strategies over time. Our findings reveal that while plant communities generally transitioned from ruderal to stress‐tolerant strategies during succession, initial abandonment conditions crucially shaped early successional strategies, leading to varied strategy trajectories across different fields. Furthermore, we found a notable divergence in the CSR strategies of alien and native species over succession. Initially, alien and native species exhibited similar ruderal strategies, but in later stages, alien species exhibited higher ruderal and lower stress tolerance compared to native species. Overall, our findings underscore the applicability of Grime's predictions regarding temporal shifts in CSR strategies depending on both initial community conditions and species origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fault prediction ensures safe and stable production, and cuts maintenance costs. Due to the changing operating conditions that lead to the changes in the characteristics of industrial processes, there is a need to monitor the fault state of batch processes in real‐time and to accurately predict fault trends. An adaptive slow feature analysis‐neighborhood preserving embedding‐improved stochastic configuration network (SFA‐NPE‐ISCN) algorithm for batch process fault prediction is proposed. Firstly, SFA is used to extract the time‐varying features of process data and establish the update index of the NPE model. Then, to extract local nearest‐neighbor features and reconstruct them by the NPE model with adaptive update capability, square prediction error (SPE) statistics are constructed as fault state features based on the reconstructed error. Further, the hunter‐prey optimization (HPO) algorithm optimizes the weights and biases in the stochastic configuration network, and the singular value decomposition (SVD) and QR decomposition of column rotation are introduced to solve the ill‐posed problem of SCN and obtain the prediction model of ISCN. Finally, the obtained statistics SPE is formed into a time series, and the ISCN model is used to predict the process state trend. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified by case studies of industrial‐scale penicillin fermentation processes and the Hot strip mill process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pearl River Delta is a complex ecological‐artificial system. The low‐elevation landform and land subsidence make the Guangdong‐Hong Kong‐Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) more vulnerable to heavy rainstorms with sea‐level rise in the future. Therefore, this study discussed how to optimize the delta‐related built environment based on locality via cooperation between urban designers and hydrology researchers so that urban development in the GBA can adapt to water disasters. First, this study proposed three adaptive spatial strategies for urban design to improve flood resilience: (a) adding more sunken space and rearranging the locations of manholes; (b) adding more retention space to the waterway system; and (c) improving foundation elevation for suitable development intensity. With the prediction of sea‐level rise and land subsidence, four different scenarios were defined. Second, a coupled 1D/2D hydrodynamic model was built for scenario‐based urban inundation simulations. Third, a Python workflow was developed to reveal the water volume exchange, and an ArcMap workflow to realize the impact of inundation. The simulation results show that (a) more sunken space can lower the peak runoff discharges and decrease the runoff coefficient; (b) more retention space can extend the capacity of the urban drainage system and adapt to the rise of sea level; and (c) improving foundation elevation and more sunken green space can direct the surface water to submerge urban land in reasonable order, which can protect the significant infrastructures and development lands. This paper suggests that these adaptive spatial strategies can serve as solutions for resilience development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing evidence has shown that light exists in a diverse range of deep‐sea environments. We unexpectedly found that blue light is necessary to produce excess zero‐valent sulfur (ZVS) in Erythrobacter flavus 21‐3, a bacterium that has been recently isolated from a deep‐sea cold seep. E. flavus 21‐3 is able to convert thiosulfate to ZVS using a novel thiosulfate oxidation pathway comprising a thiosulfate dehydrogenase (TsdA) and a thiosulfohydrolase (SoxB). Using proteomic, bacterial two‐hybrid and heterologous expression assays, we found that the light–oxygen–voltage histidine kinase LOV‐1477 responds to blue light and activates the diguanylate cyclase DGC‐2902 to produce c‐di‐GMP. Subsequently, the PilZ domain‐containing protein mPilZ‐1753 binds to c‐di‐GMP and activates TsdA through direct interaction. Finally, Raman spectroscopy and gene knockout results verified that TsdA and two SoxB homologs cooperate to regulate ZVS production. As ZVS is an energy source for E. flavus 21‐3, we propose that deep‐sea blue light provides E. flavus 21‐3 with a selective advantage in the cold seep, suggesting a previously unappreciated relationship between light‐sensing pathways and sulfur metabolism in a deep‐sea microorganism. Synopsis: Blue light has been shown to affect metabolism in certain deep‐sea bacteria. Here, we show that blue light promotes the formation of zero‐valent sulfur (ZVS) in the deep‐sea cold‐seep bacterium Erythrobacter flavus 21‐3 via a pathway involving a light‐sensing LOV histidine kinase and downstream c‐di‐GMP production. Blue light stimulates the production of zero‐valent sulfur (ZVS) in E. flavus 21‐3.The light–oxygen–voltage histidine kinase LOV‐1477 phosphorylates the diguanylate cyclase DGC‐2902 and promotes the production of c‐di‐GMP.mPilZ‐1753 binds c‐di‐GMP, activating thiosulfate dehydrogenase (TsdA) via a direct interaction.Two thiosulfohydrolase (SoxB) homologs collaborate with TsdA to generate ZVS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The selection of adaptive strategies in MR‐guided adaptive radiotherapy (MRgART) usually relies on subjective review of anatomical changes. However, this kind of review may lead to improper selection of adaptive strategy for some fractions. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop prediction models based on deformation vector field (DVF) features for automatic and accurate strategy selection, using prostate cancer as an example. Methods: 100 fractions of 20 prostate cancer patients were retrospectively selected in this study. Treatment plans using both adapt to position (ATP) strategy and adapt to shape (ATS) strategy were generated. Optimal adaptive strategy was determined according to dosimetric evaluation. DVFs of the deformable image registration (DIR) of daily MRI and CT simulation scans were extracted. The shape, first order statistics, and spatial features were extracted from the DVFs, subjected to further selection using the minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR) method. The number of features (Fn) was hyper‐tuned using bootstrapping method, and then Fn indicating a peak area under the curve (AUC) value was used to construct three prediction models. Results: According to subjective review, the ATS strategy was adopted for all 100 fractions. However, the evaluation results showed that the ATP strategy could have met the clinical requirements for 23 (23%) fractions. The three prediction models showed high prediction performance, with the best performing model achieving an AUC value of 0.896, corresponding accuracy (ACC), sensitivity (SEN) and specificity (SPC) of 0.9, 0.958, and 0.667, respectively. The features used to construct prediction models included four features extracted from y direction of DVF (DVFy) and mask, one feature from z direction of DVF (DVFz). It indicated that the deformation along the anterior‐posterior direction had a greater impact on determining the adaptive strategy than other directions. Conclusions: DVF‐feature‐based models could accurately predict the adaptive strategy and avoid unnecessary selection of time‐consuming ATS strategy, which consequently improves the efficiency of the MRgART process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shifts in adaptive strategies revealed by ecological succession and the mechanisms that facilitate these shifts are fundamental to ecology. These adaptive strategies could be particularly important in communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) mutualistic with sorghum, where strong AMF succession replaces initially ruderal species with competitive ones and where the strongest plant response to drought is to manage these AMF. Although most studies of agriculturally important fungi focus on parasites, the mutualistic symbionts, AMF, constitute a research system of human‐associated fungi whose relative simplicity and synchrony are conducive to experimental ecology. First, we hypothesize that, when irrigation is stopped to mimic drought, competitive AMF species should be replaced by AMF species tolerant to drought stress. We then, for the first time, correlate AMF abundance and host plant transcription to test two novel hypotheses about the mechanisms behind the shift from ruderal to competitive AMF. Surprisingly, despite imposing drought stress, we found no stress‐tolerant AMF, probably due to our agricultural system having been irrigated for nearly six decades. Remarkably, we found strong and differential correlation between the successional shift from ruderal to competitive AMF and sorghum genes whose products (i) produce and release strigolactone signals, (ii) perceive mycorrhizal‐lipochitinoligosaccharide (Myc‐LCO) signals, (iii) provide plant lipid and sugar to AMF, and (iv) import minerals and water provided by AMF. These novel insights frame new hypotheses about AMF adaptive evolution and suggest a rationale for selecting AMF to reduce inputs and maximize yields in commercial agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trait plasticity (variation of a trait under environmental variability or gradients) and trait integration are both crucial for plant adaption to environmental change. Variations in different suite of root traits such as biomass allocation, morphology and physiology underlie diverse phosphorus (P) acquisition strategies among plants. Yet, how the intraspecific plasticity and integration of root traits influence plant adaptation to different P supply remains obscure. To characterize diverse adaptive strategies in relation to plant P acquisition, eight root traits were assessed in 20 wheat Triticum aestivum genotypes grown in a culture room with low and high P supply. High P supply increased shoot P accumulation and biomass of all wheat genotypes. The shoot P accumulation in genotypes with high P sensitivity (PS: calculated as shoot P content at low P/shoot P content at high P supply) was higher with high P supply and lower with low P supply compared with that in the genotypes with low PS. The high‐PS genotypes exhibited larger variation in root length, root/shoot ratio and rhizosphere pH across P supplies than the low‐PS genotypes, suggesting an integrated response at the whole‐plant level. At low P supply, the high‐PS genotypes had greater root length and specific root length, but lower acid phosphatase activity than the low‐PS genotypes, which suggests contrasting P‐acquisition strategies across the genotypes. Strong co‐variation of root traits occurred across low‐PS genotypes regardless of P supply; conversely, the high‐PS genotypes only exhibited strong trait integration at low P supply, whereas high P supply sharply reduced root trait co‐variation. Our findings suggest that P stress may strengthen root trait integration in wheat plants, and that both plasticity and integration of root traits drive plant adaptive strategies and tolerance to P‐deficiency stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant communities in green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) such as biofilters play an integral role in ecosystem services provisioning, such that many design manuals now feature plant lists that guide vegetation selection.This study looks at the implications of those lists for biofilter plant communities and their services, focusing on (1) how plants are selected across US climate zones, (2) whether selected plants exhibit adaptive strategy biases (i.e. towards competitive, stress tolerant or ruderal strategies that might impact ecosystem services provisioning) and (3) whether human‐induced selection or natural climatic processes underly any biases revealed.Our results suggest that biofilter plant strategies are significantly biased towards stress tolerance or competitiveness (depending on the climate zone) and away from ruderalness relative to the broader pool of native and wetland‐adapted native species.Competitive bias was evident in humid‐continental climates and stress‐tolerant bias in hot coastal/arid climates, with some degree of anti‐ruderal bias present across all zones.These biases are correlated with human concerns related to water availability and climate (water conservation; p < 0.05, irrigation; p < 0.1, climate extremes; p < 0.1). They do not appear to reflect strict climatological limits (i.e. limits that are independent of preferences or design constraints imposed by people) because they are not also evident for native plants.The benefits and costs of relaxing these biases are discussed, focusing on the implications for water quality, hydrologic, and cultural services provisioning and the dynamicity of GSI ecosystems, particularly their capacity to self‐repair, a prerequisite for the development of self‐sustaining GSI. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precipitation is a primary determinant of plant community structure in drylands. However, the empirical evidence and predictions are lacking for how plant functional diversity in desert and steppe communities respond to altered precipitation regimes.We examined how precipitation changes along the natural and experimental gradients affect different components of functional diversity in desert‐shrub and steppe‐grass communities. We compared the associations of precipitation changes with community‐weighted means (CWMs) of six traits, functional divergence (FDvar) of each single‐trait and multi‐trait functional richness (FRic) and dispersion (FDis) for shrub and grass communities along the natural and experimental gradients. We also disentangle the roles of species turnover and intraspecific variations in affecting the responses of different functional diversity to precipitation changes.We found that in general, the similar responses of functional traits or diversity to both the natural and experimental precipitation gradients were dependent on plant community type. Across both two gradients, precipitation was positively associated with CWM of plant height and negatively associated with the CWM of SLA and leaf thickness in grass community, while positively associated with FDvar of four traits and FDis in shrub communities. Both species turnover and intraspecific variations contributed to the responses of grass community traits to precipitation changes across both two gradients, and to FDvar of traits and FDis in shrub community along the natural gradient. In contrast, species turnover variations contributed to FDvar of traits and FDis in shrub community in experiment.These results suggest that there is better concordance between the effects of naturally and experimentally increased precipitation on functional diversity of plant communities, but different mechanisms behind the relationship of functional diversity–precipitation between shrub and grass communities. Grass communities can adapt to precipitation changes by average trait differences, while shrub communities persist through FDvar of single‐trait and multi‐trait dispersion, thus highlighting the important differences in adaptive strategies between shrub and grass communities. Our findings demonstrate that short‐term responses of plant communities to manipulative precipitation changes can reflect long‐term shifts at spatial scales depending on the specific functional trait and diversity. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sharp rise in anthropogenic activities and climate change has caused the extensive degradation of grasslands worldwide, jeopardizing ecosystem function, and threatening human well‐being. Toxic weeds have been constantly spreading in recent decades; indeed, their occurrence is considered to provide an early sign of land degeneration. Policymakers and scientific researchers often focus on the negative effects of toxic weeds, such as how they inhibit forage growth, kill livestock, and cause economic losses. However, toxic weeds can have several potentially positive ecological impacts on grasslands, such as promoting soil and water conservation, improving nutrient cycling and biodiversity conservation, and protecting pastures from excessive damage by livestock. We reviewed the literature to detail the adaptive mechanisms underlying toxic weeds and to provide new insight into their roles in degraded grassland ecosystems. The findings highlight that the establishment of toxic weeds may provide a self‐protective strategy of degenerated pastures that do not require special interventions. Consequently, policymakers, managers, and other personnel responsible for managing grasslands need to take appropriate actions to assess the long‐term trade‐offs between the development of animal husbandry and the maintenance of ecological services provided by grasslands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How research interacts with applications in river management and restoration is a critical question within the Anthropocene era. Improved knowledge regarding the socioecological effects of river management and restoration is therefore needed to establish compromises between water uses and riverine ecosystem requirements. This special issue tackles how river management and restoration activities have recently evolved to target cost‐efficient and more integrated measures. Some of the contributions showed monitoring feedbacks provide lessons to improve river status and assess success of restoration activities. The range of success indicators considered is continually widening, including more social factors in addition to existing ecological ones. Moreover, win‐win and adaptative strategies are also explored to make restoration projects successful and more appreciated by people. Upscaling approaches are also feeding into a growing research field to provide more robust diagnosis for evaluating river status, targeting improvement actions and considering integrative ecological issues in addition to chemical and morphological factors and even fluvial risk assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balanced space‐fractional derivative is usually applied in modelling the state‐dependence, isotropy, and anisotropy in diffusion phenomena. In this paper, we introduce a class of space‐fractional reaction‐diffusion model with singular source term arising in combustion process. The fractional derivative employed in this model is defined in the sum of left‐sided and right‐sided Riemann‐Liouville fractional derivatives. With assistance of Kaplan's first eigenvalue method, we prove that the classic solution of this model may not be globally well‐defined, and the heat conduction governed by this model depends on the order of fractional derivative, the parameters in the equation, and the length of spatial interval. Finite difference method is implemented to solve this model, and an adaptive strategy is applied to improve the computational efficiency. The positivity, monotonicity, and stability of the numerical scheme are discussed. Numerical simulation and observation of the quenching and stationary solutions coincide the theoretical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plants have developed a suite of traits to survive the anaerobic and anoxic soil conditions in wetlands. Previous studies on wetland plant adaptive traits have focused mainly on physiological aspects under experimental conditions, or compared the trait expression of the local species pool. Thus, a comprehensive analysis of potential factors driving wetland plant adaptive traits under natural environmental conditions is still missing.In this study, we analysed three important wetland adaptive traits, that is root porosity, root/shoot ratio and underwater photosynthetic rate, to explore driving factors using a newly compiled dataset of wetland plants. Based on 21 studies at 38 sites across different biomes, we found that root porosity was affected by an interaction of temperature and hydrological regime; root:shoot ratio was affected by temperature, precipitation and habitat type; and underwater photosynthetic rate was affected by precipitation and life‐form. This suggests that a variety of driving mechanisms affect the expression of different adaptive traits.The quantitative relationships we observed between the adaptive traits and their driving factors will be a useful reference for future global methane and denitrification modelling studies. Our results also stress that besides the traditionally emphasized hydrological driving factors, other factors at several spatial scales should also be taken into consideration in the context of future functional wetland ecology. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In this paper, the problem of pinning synchronization for delayed complex directed networks via generalized intermittent adaptive control strategy is considered. First, a dynamical mode of delayed network is investigated. Second, a generalized intermittent adaptive control strategy which unified the traditional periodic intermittent control and the aperiodic case is introduced. Additionally, by constructing a piecewise Lyapunov auxiliary function and making use of piecewise analysis technique, some effective and novel criteria to ensure the global synchronization of delayed complex networks based on the designed control protocols are obtained. Finally, an example with numerical simulations is provided to demonstrate the validness of the theoretical results proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In this paper, we present an adaptive mesh refinement method for solving convection‐diffusion‐reaction equations on surfaces, which is a fundamental subproblem in many models for simulating the transport of substances on biological films and solid surfaces. The method considered is a combination of well‐known techniques: the surface finite element method, streamline diffusion stabilization, and the gradient recovery–based Zienkiewicz‐Zhu error estimator. The streamline diffusion method overcomes the instability issue of the finite element method for the dominance of the convection. The gradient recovery–based adaptive mesh refinement strategy enables the method to provide high‐resolution numerical solutions by relatively fewer degrees of freedom. Moreover, the implementation detail of a surface mesh refinement technique is presented. Various numerical examples, including the convection‐dominated diffusion problems with large variations of solutions, nearly singular solutions, discontinuous sources, and internal layers on surfaces, are presented to demonstrate the efficacy and accuracy of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Horticulture has been recognized as the main pathway of plant invasions worldwide. The selection of ornamental garden plants is not random, and certain plant characteristics related to adaptive plant strategies are preferred by horticulture and may promote invasion. We examined the direct and indirect interactions between horticultural use, species adaptive strategies (competitive (C), stress‐tolerant (S), and ruderal (R)), native range size and naturalization success. Location: Global. Time period: From 1492 to the present. Major taxa studied: Vascular plants. Methods: We compiled a dataset of 3,794 plant species including their C‐, S‐ and R‐scores, native range size, cultivation in botanic and domestic gardens and whether the species is naturalized in at least one region globally (naturalization incidence). For the 1,711 naturalized species, we also calculated naturalization extent, that is, the number of regions where the species has naturalized. We used phylogenetic path analysis to disentangle the direct and indirect effects of all variables on both naturalization incidence and extent, and the relationships between variables. Results: Approximately 87 and 94% of the 1,711 naturalized species were cultivated in botanic or domestic gardens, respectively, compared to c. 55 and 50% of the 2,083 non‐naturalized species, respectively. We found a cascading structure among the examined variables: (a) species exhibiting C‐ or R‐selected strategies and having large native ranges tended to be cultivated in domestic and botanic gardens, became naturalized outside their native ranges and occupied more regions in their naturalized ranges; (b) C‐, S‐ and R‐scores also had indirect effects on naturalization success, which were mediated by horticultural use and native range size; and (c) cultivation in domestic gardens was the strongest factor examined that could explain plant species' naturalization success. Main conclusions: We show that horticulture is not only the major introduction pathway of alien plants, but also that in particular domestic gardens select species predisposed to invade and naturalize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In plant ecology, characterising colonisation and extinction in plant metapopulations is challenging due to the non‐detectable seed bank that allows plants to emerge after several years of absence. In this study, we used a Hidden Markov Model to characterise seed dormancy, colonisation and germination solely from the presence–absence of standing flora. Applying the model to data from a long‐term survey of 38 annual weeds across France, we identified three homogeneous functional groups: (1) species persisting preferentially through spatial colonisation, (2) species persisting preferentially through seed dormancy and (3) a mix of both strategies. These groups are consistent with existing ecological knowledge, demonstrating that ecologically meaningful parameters can be estimated from simple presence–absence observations. These results indicate that such studies could contribute to the design of weed management strategies. They also open the possibility of testing life‐history theories such as the dormancy/colonisation trade‐off in natura. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Functional traits and their variation mediate plant species coexistence and spatial distribution. Yet, how patterns of variation in belowground traits influence resource acquisition across species and plant communities remains obscure., To characterize diverse belowground strategies in relation to species coexistence and abundance, we assessed four key belowground traits - root diameter, root branching intensity, first-order root length and mycorrhizal colonization - in 27 coexisting species from three grassland communities along a precipitation gradient., Species with thinner roots had higher root branching intensity, but shorter first-order root length and consistently low mycorrhizal colonization, whereas species with thicker roots enhanced their capacity for resource acquisition by producing longer first-order roots and maintaining high mycorrhizal colonization. Plant species observed across multiple sites consistently decreased root branching and/or mycorrhizal colonization, but increased lateral root length with decreasing precipitation. Additionally, the degree of intraspecific trait variation was positively correlated with species abundance across the gradient, indicating that high intraspecific trait variation belowground may facilitate greater fitness and chances of survival across multiple habitats., These results suggest that a small set of critical belowground traits can effectively define diverse resource acquisition strategies in different environments and may forecast species survival and range shifts under climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the distributed average computation problem for multiple time-varying signals with bounded inputs. Based only on relative output measurements, a pair of continuous algorithms with, respectively, static and adaptive coupling strengths are designed and utilized. From the concept of boundary layer approach, the proposed continuous algorithm with static coupling strengths can asymptotically obtain the average value of the multiple reference signals without chattering phenomenon. Furthermore, for the case of algorithms with adaptive coupling strengths, the calculation errors are uniformly ultimately bounded and exponentially converge to a small adjustable bounded set. Finally, a simulation example is presented to show the validity of the theoretical results. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions The link between the carbon composition of aquatic plants and (1) plant strategies and (2) habitat nutrient availability has received little attention. We tested whether three aquatic species belonging to the three adaptive strategies defined by Grime (ruderal, stress tolerant and competitive) had contrasting carbon allocation patterns, and if these patterns varied in the same way between populations distributed along a gradient of habitat nutrient content. Location Wetlands in the northern Rhône River Basin, France. Methods The three species were sampled in 17 wetlands along a gradient of nutrient content in the northern Rhône River Basin. In each population sampled, we measured plant water content, C/N ratio, structural compounds (lignin and structural polysaccharides) and storage compounds (free sugars and starch) in two seasons (spring and autumn 2012). Results The stress-tolerant species had higher content of structural compounds than the competitive and ruderal species. The content of storage compounds was higher in the competitive and stress-tolerant species compared to the ruderal species. Allocation of carbon compounds varied with habitat nutrient content in different ways for the three species, suggesting contrasting plasticities, possibly linked to plant strategy. Conclusion Plant strategies and habitat nutrient content are likely key drivers in plant carbon allocation and should be taken into account when studying interactions between habitat and plant quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides practical experience with two climate impact and adaptation assessment methods: Real- In- Options ( RIO) optimisation and Adaptation Tipping Points ( ATP). These methods were selected because they both provide insight into and promote the ability of the system to deal with future change and thus can be used within a resilience approach. The resilience approach takes a dynamic perspective on adaptive processes and the effects of these processes at/across different spatio-temporal scales. Although the two methods share a similar aim, they have considerable differences in orientation and application. RIO optimisation aims to minimise the expected costs of acquiring climate change resilience. To achieve this aim, it uses probabilistic climate data to identify the optimal set of adaptive strategies in response to advances in knowledge about future climate change. The ATP method is virtually independent of climate change scenarios, and in particular of probabilities of climate change. Rather, it requires input from decision makers and other stakeholders to select the preferred adaptive strategy. This paper discusses the concept, procedures, case examples and benefits/limitations of each method, examining its usefulness for informing adaptation-related decision making. Based on this, it gives specific recommendations on which method to use under what circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undersegmentation or oversegmentation is a challenge faced in image segmentation methods, and it is extreme important to determine the optimal number of regions (clusters) of an image in real‐world applications. In this study, we introduce an adaptive strategy to do so. The basic idea is to firstly oversegment an image by using the Mean‐shift (MS) method, and then segment the obtained oversegmented results by using an evolutionary algorithm. In the second stage, a feature is extracted for each region obtained by the MS method, and a new fitness function is designed to determine the optimal number of clusters. The adaptive approach is applied to a variety of images, and the experimental results show that our method is both efficient and effective for image segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Recent models on bet-hedging germination in annual plants assume a negative relationship between the proportion of offspring that germinate and the quality of the maternal environment. An increase in the proportion of seeds remaining dormant in the next year, when produced in seasons with high reproduction may result from selection that avoids overcrowding in the following year. 2. We present the first empirical test of this prediction by utilizing a field experiment in Israel which manipulated the entire maternal environment. We subjected semi-arid and Mediterranean annual plant communities to different rainfall treatments: control, reduced and increased rainfall. We then related maternal environment quality to offspring germination fractions for three focal species in two consecutive seasons. 3. There was a negative relationship between the quality of the maternal environment and offspring germination fraction in four out of twelve cases. The negative relationship was stronger for the least competitive species and in the environment with high competition intensity, supporting the role of competition for the observed pattern. 4. Our results suggest that competition with all neighbours is more likely to explain the pattern than sib competition. 5. Synthesis. Our findings provide the first experimental evidence of a highly reliable cue (productivity of maternal environment) that allows for plants to respond to their future biotic environment. There is an urgent need for testing predictions of theoretical models in natural populations and for incorporating the role of density dependence in studies of bet-hedging germination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Concurrent irradiation of the prostate and pelvic lymph nodes is technically challenging due to treating one moving target and one immobile target. The purposes of this article are to propose a new management strategy and to compare this strategy to the conventional isocenter shift method and the previously proposed MLC-shifting method. Methods: To cope with two target volumes (one moving and one immobile), the authors propose a new management strategy referred to as multiple adaptive plans (MAPs). This strategy involves the creation of a pool of plans for a number of potential prostate locations. Without requiring any additional hardware or software, the MAP strategy is to choose a plan from the pool that most closely matches the “prostate position of the day.” This position can be determined by dual image registrations: One aligned to the implant markers in the prostate and the other aligned to the pelvic bones. This strategy was clinically implemented for a special patient with high risk prostate cancer and pathologically confirmed positive pelvic lymph nodes, requiring concurrent IMRT treatment of the prostate and pelvic lymph nodes. Because this patient had an abdominal kidney, small planning margins around the both targets were desired. Using 17 daily acquired megavoltage cone beam CTs (CBCTs), three sets of validation plans were calculated to retrospectively evaluate the MAP strategy as well as the isoshifting and MLC-shifting strategies. Results: According to the validation plans, MAP, isoshifting, and MLC-shifting strategies resulted in D95 of the prostate >95% of the daily dose on 65%, 100%, and 100% treatment days, respectively. Similarly, D95 of the pelvic lymph nodal was >95% of the daily dose on 100%, 75%, and 94% of treatment days, respectively. Conclusions: None of the above strategies simultaneously achieved all treatment goals. Among the three strategies, the MLC shifting was most successful. Validation plans based on daily CBCTs are useful to evaluate the effectiveness of the motion management strategies and to provide additional dose guidance if further dose compensation is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a neural network (NN)-embedded genetic algorithm (GA) approach for solving inverse water quality modeling problems to overcome the computational bottleneck of inverse modeling by replacing a water quality model with an efficient NN functional evaluator. An existing one-step, NN-embedded GA approach is found incapable of solving an inverse water quality modeling problem because it tends to fail in guiding the global search process to converge toward the near optima. As a remedy, an adaptive NN-GA approach is proposed to achieve a gradual convergence toward the near optima through an iterative network learning method. The proposed approach is applied to a full-scale, numerical example, and the result shows that the adaptive NN-GA approach is capable of obtaining near-optimal solutions for the inverse problem of a complicated water quality model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The live weight (LW) and dry weight (DW), lipid and water content and starvation-longevity of adult Amorbus obscuricornis and adult Gelonus tasmanicus were examined in successive seasons. Amorbus obscuricornis was consistently heavier than G. tasmanicus. In both species, water content was inversely related to lipid content. The LW, DW and lipid contents of A. obscuricornis were lowest in spring. In contrast, LW and DW of G. tasmanicus were highest in spring, whereas lipid content was highest in autumn. These differences appear to be related to the reproductive cycles of these species. Starvation-longevity of both species was affected by relative humidity, being greatest at 99% and declining rapidly below 80%, and by temperature, being greatest for A. obscuricornis at 10.6°C and increasing for G. tasmanicus with decreasing temperature to 4.5°C. These differences may be related to differences in the habitat preferences of the two species, with G. tasmanicus apparently preferring cooler habitats than A. obscuricornis. It was considered that the conditions that pre-wintering adults of either species could withstand would facilitate their hibernation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To see the regional variation of Japanese Ceratopteris thalictroides in the mode of vegetative growth of sporophytes, offspring sporophytes of 12 local populations were cultivated under long day, short day, and low temperature conditions. In contrast to sporophytes of southern populations, those of northern populations exhibited a strong tendency to form fertile leaves with a short period of vegetative growth. From morphological analyses of sterile leaves, four patterns were recognized in the shortening of the vegetative-growth period: one is shortening by a variation of acceleration, a type of heterochrony, and the remaining three are shortening by progenesis, another type of heterochrony, linked to the long day, the short day, or low temperature. Since the period during which sporophytes of C. thalictroides can grow is shorter in higher latitudes in Japan, heterochrony, especially progenosis, in northern populations is regarded as an adaptive strategy of this species to expand its distribution towards the north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]