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China is the largest fruit producer and consumer market in the world. Understanding the growing conditions responses to climate change is the key to predict future site suitability of main cultivation areas for certain deciduous fruit trees. In this study, we used dynamic and growing degree day models driven by downscaled daily temperatures from 22 global climate models to project the effects of climate change on growing conditions for deciduous fruit trees under two representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios over 2 future time periods (represented by central years 2050s and 2085s) in northern China. The results showed a general increase of available winter chill for all sites under RCP4.5 scenario, and the most dramatic increase in chill accumulation could reach up to 36.8% in northeast regions for RCP8.5. However, the forecasted chill will decrease by 6.4% in southeast stations under RCP8.5 by 2085s. Additionally, the increase rate of growing season heat showed spatially consistency, and the most pronounced increase was found in the RCP8.5 by 2085s. For the southwest station, median heat accumulation increased by 20.8% in the 2050s and 37.1% in the 2085s under RCP8.5. Similar increasing range could be found in the northeast station; the median growing season heat increased by 19.8% and 38.8% in the 2050s and 2085s under RCP8.5, respectively. Moreover, the date of last spring frost was expected to advance and the frequency of frost occurrences was projected to decline in the study area compared to the past. Overall, the present study improves understanding regarding site-specific characteristics of climatic suitability for deciduous fruit tree cultivation in main producing regions of northern China. The results could provide growers and decision-makers with theoretical evidence to take adaptive measure to ensure fruit production in future.

Abstract. Regional land carbon budgets provide insights on the spatial distribution of the land uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and can be used to evaluate carbon cycle models and to define baselines for land-based additional mitigation efforts. The scientific community has been involved in providing observation-based estimates of regional carbon budgets either by downscaling atmospheric CO2 observations into surface fluxes with atmospheric inversions, by using inventories of carbon stock changes in terrestrial ecosystems, by upscaling local field observations such as flux towers with gridded climate and remote sensing fields or by integrating data-driven or process-oriented terrestrial carbon cycle models. The first coordinated attempt to collect regional carbon budgets for nine regions covering the entire globe in the RECCAP-1 project has delivered estimates for the decade 2000–2009, but these budgets were not comparable between regions, due to different definitions and component fluxes reported or omitted. The recent recognition of lateral fluxes of carbon by human activities and rivers, that connect CO2 uptake in one area with its release in another also requires better definition and protocols to reach harmonized regional budgets that can be summed up to the globe and compared with the atmospheric CO2 growth rate and inversion results. In this study, for the international initiative RECCAP-2 coordinated by the Global Carbon Project, which aims as an update of regional carbon budgets over the last two decades based on observations, for 10 regions covering the globe, with a better harmonization that the precursor project, we provide recommendations for using atmospheric inversions results to match bottom-up carbon accounting and models, and we define the different component fluxes of the net land atmosphere carbon exchange that should be reported by each research group in charge of each region. Special attention is given to lateral fluxes, inland water fluxes and land use fluxes.

AbstractEcologists are increasingly aware of the importance of environmental variability in natural systems. Climate change is affecting both the mean and the variability in weather and, in particular, the effect of changes in variability is poorly understood. Organisms are subject to selection imposed by both the mean and the range of environmental variation experienced by their ancestors. Changes in the variability in a critical environmental factor may therefore have consequences for vital rates and population dynamics. Here, we examine ≥90‐year trends in different components of climate (precipitation mean and coefficient of variation (CV); temperature mean, seasonal amplitude and residual variance) and consider the effects of these components on survival and recruitment in a population of Eurasian beavers (n = 242) over 13 recent years. Within climatic data, no trends in precipitation were detected, but trends in all components of temperature were observed, with mean and residual variance increasing and seasonal amplitude decreasing over time. A higher survival rate was linked (in order of influence based on Akaike weights) to lower precipitation CV (kits, juveniles and dominant adults), lower residual variance of temperature (dominant adults) and lower mean precipitation (kits and juveniles). No significant effects were found on the survival of nondominant adults, although the sample size for this category was low. Greater recruitment was linked (in order of influence) to higher seasonal amplitude of temperature, lower mean precipitation, lower residual variance in temperature and higher precipitation CV. Both climate means and variance, thus proved significant to population dynamics; although, overall, components describing variance were more influential than those describing mean values. That environmental variation proves significant to a generalist, wide‐ranging species, at the slow end of the slow‐fast continuum of life histories, has broad implications for population regulation and the evolution of life histories.

The fast decay in PEM fuel cells of a highly active, high performance, but unstable Fe/N/C catalyst like our NC_Ar + NH3 follows a chemical, not an electrochemical, demetallation mechanism for its ORR active FeN4 sites in the catalyst micropores.

Xuanwei City (formerly known as Xuanwei County) locates in the northeastern of Yunnan Province and is rich in coal, iron, copper and other mines, especially the smoky (bituminous) coal. Unfortunately, the lung cancer morbidity and mortality rates in this region are among China's highest, with a clear upward trend from the mid-1970s to mid-2000s. In 2004-2005, the crude death rate of lung cancer was 91.3 per 100,000 in the whole Xuanwei City, while that for Laibin Town in this city was 241.14 per 100,000. The epidemiologic distribution (clustering patterns by population, time, and space) of lung cancer in Xuanwei has some special features, e.g., high incidence in rural areas, high incidence in females, and an early age peak in lung cancer deaths. The main factor that associates with a high rate of lung cancer incidence was found to be indoor air pollution caused by the indoor burning of smoky coal. To a certain extent, genetic defects are also associated with the high incidence of lung cancer in Xuanwei. Taken together, lung cancer in this smoky coal combustion region is a unique model for environmental factor-related human cancer, and the current studies indicate that abandoning the use of smoky coal is the key to diminish lung cancer morbidity and mortality.

Lipase‐catalyzed transesterification of triglycerides and alcohols to obtain biodiesel is an environmentally friendly and sustainable route for fuels production since, besides proceeding in mild reaction conditions, it allows for the use of low‐cost feedstocks that contain water and free fatty acids, for example non‐edible oils and waste oils. This review article reports recent advances in the field and focus in particular on a major issue in the enzymatic process, the inactivation of most lipases caused by methanol, the preferred acyl acceptor used for alcoholysis. The recent results about immobilization of enzymes on nano‐materials and the use of whole‐cell biocatalysts, as well as the use of cell‐surface display technologies and metabolic engineering strategies for microbial production of biodiesel are described. It is discussed also insight into the effects of methanol on lipases obtained by modeling approaches and report on studies aimed at mining novel alcohol stable enzymes or at improving robustness in existing ones by protein engineering.

AbstractUnderstanding observed patterns of connectivity requires an understanding of the evolutionary processes that determine genetic structure among populations, with the most common models being associated with isolation by distance, allopatry or vicariance. Pinnipeds are annual breeders with the capacity for extensive range overlap during seasonal migrations, establishing the potential for the evolution of isolation by distance. Here, we assess the pattern of differentiation among six breeding colonies of the southern elephant seal, Mirounga leonina, based on mtDNA and 15 neutral microsatellite DNA markers, and consider measures of their demography and connectivity. We show that all breeding colonies are genetically divergent and that connectivity in this highly mobile pinniped is not strongly associated with geographic distance, but more likely linked to Holocene climate change and demographic processes. Estimates of divergence times between populations were all after the last glacial maximum, and there was evidence for directional migration in a clockwise pattern (with the prevailing current) around the Antarctic. We discuss the mechanisms by which climate change may have contributed to the contemporary genetic structure of southern elephant seal populations and the broader implications.