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Buchwaldoboletus xylophilus and Phlebopus portentosus (Boletales) are two non-ectomycorrhizal boletes, which are widely reported in tropical Asia. However, there is little information available about the taxonomy of these two boletes. Here, B. xylophilus and P. portentosus are redescribed based on morphology and molecular phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences from nuclear 28S rDNA (28S), nuc rDNA internal transcribed spacer region ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 (ITS), translation elongation factor 1-α gene (TEF1) and the RNA polymerase II second largest subunit gene (RPB2). Detailed descriptions, color photos of fresh basidiomata, and line-drawings of microscopic features of the two taxa are presented.

Ketocarotenoids were synthesized successfully in Camelina sativa seeds by genetic modification without using a traditional selection marker genes. This method provided an interesting tool for metabolic engineering of seed crops. Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz is an important oil crop with many excellent agronomic traits. This model oil plant has been exploited to accumulate value-added bioproducts using genetic manipulation that depends on antibiotic- or herbicide-based selection marker genes (SMG), one of the major concerns for genetically modified foods. Here we reported metabolic engineering of C. sativa to synthesize red ketocarotenoids that could serve as a reporter to visualize transgenic events without using a traditional SMG. Overexpression of a non-native β-carotene ketolase gene coupled with three other carotenogenous genes (phytoene synthase, β-carotene hydroxylase, and Orange) in C. sativa resulted in production of red seeds that were visibly distinguishable from the normal yellow ones. Constitutive expression of the transgenes led to delayed plant development and seed germination. In contrast, seed-specific transformants demonstrated normal growth and seed germination despite the accumulation of up to 70-fold the level of carotenoids in the seeds compared to the controls, including significant amounts of astaxanthin and keto-lutein. As a result, the transgenic seed oils exhibited much higher antioxidant activity. No significant changes were found in the profiles of fatty acids between transgenic and control seeds. This study provided an interesting tool for metabolic engineering of seed crops without using a disputed SMG.

Since the outbreak of a large-scale Ulva prolifera bloom in the Yellow Sea during the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Competition in summer 2008, Ulva blooms have been a marine hazard every summer. Accurate and timely information on Ulva areal coverage and biomass is of critical importance for governmental responses, decision making, and field studies. Previous studies have shown that satellite remote sensing is the most effective method for this purpose, yet Ulva areal coverage has been estimated in different ways with significantly different results. The objective of this paper is to determine the lower and upper bounds (T0 and T1) of algae-containing pixels in Floating Algae Index images with an objective method that accurately estimates the Ulva areal coverage in individual images, and then converts coverage to biomass using a previously established conversion equation. First, a seawater background image, FAIsw, is constructed to determine T0, which varies for different algae patches. Then, T1 is determined from water tank and in situ measurements as well as radiative transfer simulations to account for different sensor configurations, solar/viewing geometry, and atmospheric conditions. Such determined T1 for MODIS 250-m resolution data is validated using concurrent and collocated 2-m resolution WorldView-2 data. Finally, Ulva areal coverage derived from MODIS data using this method are compared with those from the high-resolution data (OLI/Landsat, WFV/GaoFen-1), with a mean relative difference of 9.6%. Furthermore, an analysis of 17 same-day MODIS/Terra and MODIS/Aqua image pairs shows that large viewing angles, atmospheric turbidity, and sunglint can lead to an underestimation of Ulva coverage of up to 45% under extreme conditions.

Hydrochemistry is an important parameter for wetland water environmental assessment. To study the hydrochemistry and main ion sources in the Qilihai wetland in Tianjin, river water, groundwater, and water in the marsh were collected and analyzed. The results show that:① The river and marsh waters are SO

The state-of-the-art OpenFOAM technology is used to develop a numerical model that can be devoted to numerically investigating wake-collapse internal waves generated by a submerged moving body. The model incorporates body geometry, propeller forcing, and stratification magnitude of seawater. The generation mechanism and wave properties are discussed based on model results. It was found that the generation of the wave and its properties depend greatly on the body speed. Only when that speed exceeds some critical value, between 1.5 and 4.5 m/s, can the moving body generate wake-collapse internal waves, and with increases of this speed, the time of generation advances and wave amplitude increases. The generated wake-collapse internal waves are confirmed to have characteristics of the second baroclinic mode. As the body speed increases, wave amplitude and length increase and its waveform tends to take on a regular sinusoidal shape. For three linearly temperature-stratified profiles examined, the weaker the stratification, the stronger the wake-collapse internal wave.

To acquire high-quality operational data products for Chinese in-orbit and scheduled ocean color sensors, the performances of two operational atmospheric correction (AC) algorithms (ESA MEGS 7.4.1 and NASA SeaDAS 6.1) were evaluated over the East China Seas (ECS) using MERIS data. The spectral remote sensing reflectance R rs(λ), aerosol optical thickness (AOT), and Angstrom exponent (α) retrieved using the two algorithms were validated using in situ measurements obtained between May 2002 and October 2009. Match-ups of R rs, AOT, and α between the in situ and MERIS data were obtained through strict exclusion criteria. Statistical analysis of R rs(λ) showed a mean percentage difference (MPD) of 9%–13% in the 490–560 nm spectral range, and significant overestimation was observed at 413 nm (MPD>72%). The AOTs were overestimated (MPD>32%), and although the ESA algorithm outperformed the NASA algorithm in the blue-green bands, the situation was reversed in the red-near-infrared bands. The value of α was obviously underestimated by the ESA algorithm (MPD=41%) but not by the NASA algorithm (MPD=35%). To clarify why the NASA algorithm performed better in the retrieval of α, scatter plots of the α single scattering albedo (SSA) density were prepared. These α-SSA density scatter plots showed that the applicability of the aerosol models used by the NASA algorithm over the ECS is better than that used by the ESA algorithm, although neither aerosol model is suitable for the ECS region. The results of this study provide a reference to both data users and data agencies regarding the use of operational data products and the investigation into the improvement of current AC schemes over the ECS.

Properly interpreting lidar (light detection and ranging) signal for characterizing particle distribution relies on a key parameter, χ p ( π ) , which relates the particulate volume scattering function (VSF) at 180° ( β p ( π ) ) that a lidar measures to the particulate backscattering coefficient ( b bp ). However, χ p ( π ) has been seldom studied due to challenges in accurately measuring β p ( π ) and b bp concurrently in the field. In this study, χ p ( π ) , as well as its spectral dependence, was re-examined using the VSFs measured in situ at high angular resolution in a wide range of waters. β p ( π ) , while not measured directly, was inferred using a physically sound, well-validated VSF-inversion method. The effects of particle shape and internal structure on the inversion were tested using three inversion kernels consisting of phase functions computed for particles that are assumed as homogenous sphere, homogenous asymmetric hexahedra, or coated sphere. The reconstructed VSFs using any of the three kernels agreed well with the measured VSFs with a mean percentage difference < 5 % at scattering angles < 170 ∘ . At angles immediately near or equal to 180°, the reconstructed β p ( π ) depends strongly on the inversion kernel. χ p ( π ) derived with the sphere kernels was smaller than those derived with the hexahedra kernel but consistent with χ p ( π ) estimated directly from high-spectral-resolution lidar and in situ backscattering sensor. The possible explanation was that the sphere kernels are able to capture the backscattering enhancement feature near 180° that has been observed for marine particles. χ p ( π ) derived using the coated sphere kernel was generally lower than those derived with the homogenous sphere kernel. Our result suggests that χ p ( π ) is sensitive to the shape and internal structure of particles and significant error could be induced if a fixed value of χ p ( π ) is to be used to interpret lidar signal collected in different waters. On the other hand, χ p ( π ) showed little spectral dependence.

Caulis spatholobi and caulis sargentodoxae are two different kinds of traditional Chinese medicine, which are similar to each other in appearance, but they are from differ sources with different functions.. This paper presents their spectrum using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy technology combines spectral matching algorithm to identify five different kinds of these samples. Due to the complex chemical composition of traditional Chinese medicine, different components of the characteristic absorption peak occurred easily mutually overlapping, therefore, it’s very difficult to find obvious characteristic absorption peak in terahertz range, caulis spatholobi and caulis like this. Every sample was measured 10 times in some position. These standard spectral data have been calculated in different frequency, data show good stability in range of 0.2~1.3 THz. The second order differential method is used to process the THz spectrum data from 0.2~1.3 THz. These tiny differences of absorption coefficient have been hemerged between caulis sargentodoxae and caulis spatholobi and compare with these data using the method of correlation coefficient block coding method, spectral angle method and information divergence method, respectively. The analysis results, the spectral angle method is the best algorithm, the discriminate accuracy of a total of 100 sets of data is 95%. It is a new way to distinguish difference of traditional Chinese medicine.

The SMOS (soil moisture and ocean salinity) mission undertaken by the European Space Agency (ESA) has provided sea surface salinity (SSS) measurements at global scale since 2009. Validation of SSS values retrieved from SMOS data has been done globally and regionally. However, the accuracy of SSS measurements by SMOS in the China seas has not been examined in detail. In this study, we compared retrieved SSS values from SMOS data with in situ measurements from a South China Sea (SCS) expedition during autumn 2011. The comparison shows that the retrieved SSS values using ascending pass data have much better agreement with in situ measurements than the result derived from descending pass data. Accuracy in terms of bias and root mean square error (RMS) of the SSS retrieved using three different sea surface roughness models is very consistent, regardless of ascending or descending orbits. When ascending and descending measurements are combined for comparison, the retrieved SSS using a semi-empirical model shows the best agreement with in situ measurements, with bias -0.33 practical salinity units and RMS 0.74. We also investigated the impact of environmental conditions of sea surface wind and sea surface temperature on accuracy of the retrieved SSS. The SCS is a semi-closed basin where radio frequencies transmitted from the mainland strongly interfere with SMOS measurements. Therefore, accuracy of retrieved SSS shows a relationship with distance between the validation sites and land.

The recently commercialized LISST-VSF instrument measures the volume scattering function (VSF) from 0.1° to 15° with a traditional laser diffraction unit (LISST) and from 15° to 155° with an eyeball component. Between these two optical components, only the LISST unit is calibrated. The eyeball measurements are scaled using the VSFs at 15° that are measured by both components. As this relative calibration relies on a valid measurement at 15° by the LISST, it might fail in clear oceanic waters, where the forward scattering is relative weak either due to a lack of large particles or an overall low concentration of all particles. In this study, we calibrated the LISST-VSF eyeball component through a series of lab experiments using standard polystyrene beads. Validation with the beads of two different sizes showed a median difference of 11.1% between theoretical and calibrated values. Further evaluations with in situ data collected by the LISST-VSF and an ECO-BB3 meter indicated that the new calibration worked well in both turbid and clear waters, while the relative calibration method tended to overestimate VSFs in clear waters.