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Tea (Camellia sinensis L.), as one of the most important cash crops in China, plays an important role in increasing farmers' incomes and guaranteeing a high quality of life. Tea production has been greatly influenced by both climate change and economic development in China. However, without a scientific understanding of the interaction mechanism of climate change and the impetus from rapid economic development on tea production practices in China, it is difficult to take adaptive actions to meet the climate change challenges for the tea industry. In this paper, we firstly assessed the potential impacts of climate change on tea climate suitability by empirical formula calculation using meteorological data; then, the effects from the additional climatic stress due to warming on tea production were detected with the annual statistical tea yield record on a municipal level. The contribution of socioeconomic development to the tea industry was evaluated with the comparison of the movement of China's national economy's and tea industry's gravity center during the period of 1987–2017. Finally, a conceptual adaptation framework was built to demonstrate the interaction mechanisms between climate change, tea production, and the economic development. The results showed that there was a negative impact of climate change on tea production in mainland China, with the percentage of high tea climate suitability (>0.9) areas dropping by 45% to 32%, while opportunities of enlarging the tea cultivating area emerged in the north tea production region where the tea climate suitability increased. We found that the tea planting area expanded northwards from 33° N in 1987 to 35° N in 2017 to take advantage of the favorable climatic resources due to warming, and tea planting decreased at an altitude of 100–400 m while increasing to higher altitude of 400–2000 m to avoid hot temperature damage and seek the optimum environment in high mountainous areas for tea production. In addition, the tea production moved westward along the longitude, decreasing obviously at 117–121° E while increasing significantly at 98–104° E and 107–110° E. Meanwhile, the tea production gravity center showed a westward movement consistent with the national economic gravity center moving trend, which means that tea industry development was driven by multiple socioeconomic factors and climatic forcings. A conceptual framework was built in this paper, aiming to show a robust adaptation mechanism for the tea system to maximize the benefits and minimize the damages from the altered climatic resources under rapid economic development in mainland China. The results in this study would help deepen the understanding of the adaptation process and practices for tea production in mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mandarin is an important fruit crop worldwide, and 'Xinyu mandarin'—a local Citrus reticulata variety—is widely cultivated in Jiangxi Province, in China. Autopolyploidy has frequently been used for the improvement of crop varieties. In a previous study, we identified a tetraploid (4X) material of 'Xinyu mandarin' generated from its diploid (2X) mother seedling via a spontaneous mutation. However, the physiological and metabolic variations after polyploidy are not clear enough, which is not conducive to the early screening. In the present study, we analyzed the morphological, physiological, and metabolic differences between the tetraploid and diploid plants. The tetraploids had larger and thicker leaves, and the activities of key enzymes in photosynthesis, the total chlorophyll, phenolic, and proline contents, were all higher in tetraploids. In the non-targeted metabolomic profile, a total of 522 metabolites were identified, of which 61 were significantly different between diploids and tetraploids. The differential metabolites included similar proportions of primary and secondary metabolites, and most of these were up-regulated in tetraploids, especially stress-related metabolites such as phenolic acids, flavonoids, alkaloids, and so on, indicating that tetraploids may possess better stress tolerance ability and vigor. Therefore, the tetraploids of 'Xinyu mandarin' may serve as an excellent female parent for the improvement of citrus varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]