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People's health is a necessary condition for the country's prosperity. Under the background of the COVID-19 pandemic and frequent natural disasters, exploring the spatial and temporal distribution, regional differences and convergence of China's provincial public health level is of great significance to promoting the coordinated development of China's regional public health and achieving the strategic goal of a "healthy China". Based on China's provincial panel data from 2009 to 2020, this paper constructs an evaluation index system for China's public health level from five dimensions: the popularization of a healthy life, optimization of health services, improvement of health insurance, construction of a healthy environment, and development of a health industry. In this paper, the entropy method, Dagum Gini coefficient, Kernel density function and spatial econometric model are used to analyze the spatiotemporal distribution, regional differences, dynamic evolution and convergence of China's public health level since the new medical reform. The study found that, first, China's public health level is generally low, structural contradictions are prominent and the construction of a healthy environment has become a shortcoming hindering the improvement of China's public health level since the new medical reform. The public health level of the four major regions showed a spatial distribution pattern of "high in the eastern, low in the northeastern, central and western" areas. Second, the overall Gini coefficient of China's public health level showed a "V-shaped" trend of first decreasing and then rising, but the overall decrease was greater than the increase, among which the regional difference was the main source of regional differences in China's public health level, but its contribution rate showed a downward trend. Third, except for the basic maintenance of a healthy environment, the Kernel density curves of China's public health level and its sub-dimensions have shifted to the right to a certain extent, and there is no polarization phenomenon. Finally, the level of public health in China has a significant spatial correlation. Except for the northeast region, the growth rate of low-level public health provinces in China and the other three major regions is higher than that of high-level public health provinces, showing a certain convergence trend. In addition, the impact of economic development, financial pressure, and urbanization on the convergence of public health levels in the four major regions is significantly heterogeneous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous promotion of China's electricity market reform, the introduction of competition in the power generation market provides a new research direction for the generation expansion planning (GEP) problem, which is of great significance in the promotion of the optimization of the power energy structure. In the context of marketization, the electricity price expectation during the planning period is a key factor of GEP for independent power generation groups. There is some literature showing that the electricity price expectation in the planning period can be estimated according to certain laws of market supply and demand, while it seems to us that a future Pay as Bid (PAB) mechanism is better to determine the electricity price expectation. In this paper, to explore the impact of these two different electricity price formation mechanisms on the evolution of the generation market, a multi-agent framework is first established to describe the interaction process among the generation market agents; then, a GEP model for independent power generation groups is developed in the market competition environment, and four representative scenarios are finally designed for detailed comparative studies. Based on these case studies, the conclusion can be summarized as: (1) the PAB bidding mechanism has a lower electricity price and higher market installed capacity almost all the time during the whole planning period for all four scenarios; (2) it is more important that PAB can reduce the impact of parameter uncertainty in the laws of market supply and demand, which can obtain more reliable and reasonable results regarding the long-term evolution of the generation market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil food webs are extremely complex as they contain diverse organisms. Feeding preference, also known as prey selection, is an important determinant of soil community compositions. However, the feeding preferences of nematodes are commonly ignored in ecology research. In this paper, the population dynamics and feeding preferences of three bacterial-feeding nematodes (i.e., Caenorhabditis elegans, Protorhabditis spp., and Acrobeloides spp.) for eight bacterial prey species were evaluated. Protorhabditis and Acrobeloides were isolated from a paddy soil in subtropical China. C. elegans, the most common model system for biological research, was used as a control in this study, and it was revealed that C. elegans could feed on all the eight bacteria strains. Protorhabditis could only survive when fed E. coli and Bacillus thuringiensis. Acrobeloides could only survive when fed E. coli and B. aryabhattai. During 10 days of culture, C. elegans populations reached the maximum in 5–7 days, and most C. elegans populations exceeded 10,000 individuals. The two Protorhabditis populations on E. coli and Bacillus thuringiensis included less than 800 individuals during 10 days of culture. Acrobeloides population on B. aryabhattai reached the maximum (7799 individuals) on day 8, while on E. coli was its population included less than 500 individuals. These results indicate that different nematode species indeed have distinct feeding preferences. In addition, the population dynamics of the two soil nematodes isolated from soil could not fully match with their inferred life-history strategies (i.e., cp values, and a 1-5 colonizer-p-ersister series that range from r-strategists to K-strategists). Our findings highlights the existing deficiencies in the understanding of the feeding behavior and the life-history strategies of soil nematodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ceramics play an important role in human daily life and production practice. Pottery sculpture technique is the core of ceramic making. However, the production process of traditional ceramics is accompanied by high pollution, which has a great impact on human health and the ecological environment. Rapid development of industrialization has exacerbated this consequence. As the "Pottery Capital of Southern China", Foshan has been involved in environmental crises while relying on the ceramic industry to develop. Since the 21st century, Foshan has gradually successfully driven to upgrade the city from industrial to culture-led by carrying out positive innovations in Shiwan pottery sculpture technique. Therefore, based on the theoretical perspective of cultural ecology, this paper selects Shiwan pottery sculpture technique as the object, uses Python (Octopus Collector) to obtain data, and applies grounded theory to generate the ecological evolution model. This study discussed how the Shiwan pottery sculpture technique promotes the harmonious coexistence of human beings, industries, and cities in the new cultural ecological environment of the 21st century by exploring and clarifying the interaction and function of different elements in different stages of evolution. Finally, this study not only makes up for the current lack of research on Shiwan's cultural ecology, but also provides meaningful reference for environmental reform in other industrialized cities.

In recent years, a changing global climate and the continuous expansion of the intensity and scope of human activities have led to regional differentiation in the surface landscape. This has caused numerous ecological risks under multiple pressure sources, gradually becoming an important factor restricting the sustainable development of economic and social health. With the continuous development of the social economy, land use and associated ecological risks will inevitably change. According to the forest transformation theory and the environmental Kuznets curve, we put forward the theoretical framework of ecological risk transformation of land-use change and took Zhangjiachuan County (China) as an example to verify it. Therefore, on the basis of Landsat satellite data, this paper used landscape structures to calculate an ecological risk index, and evaluated the ecological risk of land-use changes through pattern index analyses. The results show that, from 2000 to 2020, the ecological risk index of land-use change in Zhangjiachuan County exhibited an increasing and then decreasing trend, showing an overall "inverted U-shaped" trend of change consistent with the transformation theoretical framework of ecological risks of land use change. Secondly, in terms of patterns, the ecological risk of land-use change in Zhangjiachuan County showed a distribution feature of high in the west and low in the east. In 2000, high-risk areas were mainly concentrated in the central and northern areas, while low-risk areas were mainly concentrated in the eastern areas. From 2000 to 2015, the medium-risk areas expanded to the west and midwest, and the geographic centers of the risk areas were slightly offset. From 2015 to 2020, the overall pattern of ecological risk areas was basically the same as that of the previous stage, but the medium-risk areas were slightly reduced. In terms of quantity, from 2000 to 2015, the areas of the lowest risk level and low risk level decreased, while the areas of medium risk level, high risk level, and the highest risk level increased; from 2015 to 2020, the areas of the lowest risk level and low risk level increased, and the areas of medium risk level, high risk level, and highest risk level decreased. Lastly, the spatial aggregation of ecological risks in Zhangjiachuan County weakened slightly from 2000 to 2005, gradually increased from 2005 to 2015, and then slightly weakened from 2015 to 2020.

With ongoing economic and social development, natural habitats are becoming increasingly fragmented, blocking habitat connections and reducing landscape connectivity. The study of changes in ecological connectivity can provide valuable information for habitat and landscape restoration, which are necessary for sustainable regional development. Despite the growing interest in this issue, studies that reveal the change in ecological connectivity in the compounded areas of ecological vulnerability and deep poverty are still lacking. In this paper, one of the most underdeveloped and ecologically fragile southwestern ethnic regions of China, the Sanzhou region of Sichuan Province, was the study area. Based on a vector map of current land-use status and vector data on ecosystem factors and nature reserves in 2010 and 2015, the change in ecological connectivity was analyzed using the minimum cumulative resistance model using GIS spatial analysis method. Firstly, ecological sources were identified based on the distribution of ecological functional areas. Secondly, the ecological resistance surface based on ecosystem service value is revised by integrating the three dimensions of topography and hydrology, ecological environment and development, and utilization intensity. Finally, the ecological connectivity of ethnic areas in southwest China in 2010 and 2015 was compared and analyzed through the perspective of ecological resistance. The results show that: (1) From 2010 to 2015, the overall ecological connectivity decreased. (2) There were six areas of high ecological resistance featuring human activity and ecological degradation: the Anning River Valley in Liangshan Prefecture, Ganzi, Dege and Luho counties in Ganzi Prefecture, and Ruoergai and Hongyuan counties in Aba Prefecture. (3) Low ecological resistance areas were more numerous and widely distributed, forming an ecological protection barrier for the three autonomous prefectures, and regulating and protecting their natural environments. It is necessary to maintain and strengthen this protection; accordingly, measures are proposed to improve ecological connectivity. This study provides a reference for achieving ecological security and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature in this region.

Integrated rice field aquaculture, a practice normally used by rural small-scale farmers, is not only supporting farms and livelihoods but is also reducing poverty and is playing a more and more important role in China. It is also becoming one of the main freshwater aquaculture systems, in addition to ponds, lakes, reservoirs, streams, and other aquaculture systems. During the past 40 years, both the production and areas of integrated rice field aquaculture in China have significantly increased from 0.13 million t and 0.74 million ha in 1990 to 3.25 million t and 2.56 million ha in 2020, respectively. Advances in ecology research on integrated rice–fish aquaculture were one of the main contributors to this achievement. In this paper, we systematically reviewed the advances in ecology research on three major integrated rice field aquaculture systems in China, namely rice–fish, rice–crab, and rice–crayfish coculture systems, the contribution of the research, and future prospects. We found that progress in ecology research on theories, biological studies, models, and eco-engineering techniques, coupled with policy support promoted the development of the rice field aquaculture industries. This review could assist individual small-scale farmers to make better use of rice field space to produce safer aquatic and rice products at a lower cost and help aquaculture scientists to further study the ecology of integrated rice field aquaculture systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China's bank-centered financial and economic environment, bank risk attitudes have an important impact on the effective implementation of structural monetary policy, and monetary policy can have an impact on the corporate ecosystem through risk taking by banks. To make an economic assessment of the evolution of the banking ecosystem and empirically explore the correlation between targeted Reserve Requirement Ratio (RRR) cuts and banks' risk-taking levels in the context of financial supply-side structural reforms, this paper uses multiple regression analysis and a fixed-effects model to analyze the causal impact of targeted RRR reduction on the risk taking of Chinese commercial banks. In addition, it uses the mediation effect model to analyze the mechanism. Results show that targeted RRR cuts have significantly increased the level of risk taking of commercial banks. The findings are pronounced in urban commercial banks. However, the leverage ratio regulation has a restraining effect on the level of risk taking of banks. This study provides an effective economic evaluation for the benign development of the banking ecosystem under the environment of government policy supervision. Future research needs to expand the bank sample and further examine the changes in bank credit scale and credit investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study area of this paper is the Qinghai alpine agricultural mountain area. An ecological security early-warning model is used to identify the early warning signs of ecosystem destruction, environmental pollution and resource depletion in districts and counties from 2011 to 2018. A combination of qualitative and quantitative early-warning models is used to predict the existence of hidden or sudden advance warnings. The grey (1, 1) model (GM) is used to predict the evolution trend of ecological security warning situations from 2019 to 2021. On this basis, GIS technology is used to analyze the spatial pattern changes in three periods. The results show that from 2011 to 2018, the ecological environment in Qinghai's alpine agricultural mountainous area gradually improved. In 2018, the ecological security early-warning values of all districts and counties were greater than the 2011 values. However, in 2018, the ecological security early-warning levels of PA, LD and HZh (PA, LD and HZh refer to Ledu District, Ping'an District and Huzhu Tu Autonomous County respectively.) were in the "good" ecological early-warning state, while the ecological security levels of other cities were still in the "moderate" or "mild" ecological warning state. According to the prediction results, the early-warning level of ecological security in Qinghai's alpine agricultural mountainous areas will improve further in 2021, with the "good" states dominating. From a spatial perspective, the ecological environment in the northeast region is better than that in the southern region, and the internal differences in the ecological security early-warning levels tend to narrow. Thus, we propose that areas with different ecological security levels should focus on the management and protection of the ecological environment or carry out ecological restoration or reconstruction. The aim of this paper is to provide a reference for the improvement of the ecological environment in general and the sustainable development of the economy and society as well as the ecological environment of alpine agricultural mountainous areas in particular.

The karst area in northwestern Guangxi is poor, underdeveloped, and ecologically fragile. It is experiencing rocky desertification, which creates challenges that are more severe than those of other regional ecological environments. In this paper, the ecological footprint (EF) model is used to analyze the ecological carrying capacity (EC) in northwestern Guangxi from 1995 to 2015, and the differences in karst counties with different poverty levels are discussed. The results show that (1) since 1995, the EC of northwestern Guangxi has continued to decrease, the EF has continued to increase, the ecological deficit (ED) has been expanding, and the status of the region has been unsustainable for a long time. (2) The evolutionary patterns, EF and EC of karst counties with different poverty levels are different. The county with the lowest poverty rate has the fastest growth rate of the per capita EF. The county with the largest proportion of karst area has the lowest EC. (3) It is recommended that different types of counties take different measures, including strengthening ecological environment protection, carrying out rocky desertification control and ecological resettlement projects, and reducing energy consumption. This study can provide information for the sustainable development of the karst region and provide decision support for regional poverty alleviation., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

With China's sustained economic development and constant increase in national income, Chinese nationals' tourism consumption rate increases. As a major Chinese economic development engine, the domestic tourism industry has entered a transition period operation pattern featured by diversified products. Among them, as a new hot spot of the tourism industry in China, ecological tourism has enjoyed rapid development, with great potential. Thus, the ecological value evaluation of forest ecological tourism demonstration areas is very important to the domestic tourism industry. In this paper, we propose some Dombi Heronian mean operators with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IVIFNs). Then, two MADM (multiple attribute decision making) methods are proposed based on IVIFWDHM (interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted Dombi Heronian mean) and IVIFWDGHM (interval-valued intuitionistic weighted Dombi geometric Heronian mean) operators. Finally, we gave an experimental case for evaluating the ecological value of forest ecological tourism demonstration area to show the proposed decision methods., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The terrestrial ecosystem plays an important role in maintaining an ecological balance, protecting the ecological environment, and promoting the sustainable development of human beings. The impacts of precipitation, temperature, and other natural factors on terrestrial ecosystem pattern change (TEPC) are the basis for promoting the healthy development of the terrestrial ecosystem. This paper took the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) as the study area, analyzed the temporal and spatial characteristics of TEPC from 1995 to 2015, and used spatial transfer matrix and terrestrial ecosystem pattern dynamic degree models to analyze the area transformation between different terrestrial ecosystem types. A bivariate spatial autocorrelation model and a panel data regression model were used to study the impacts of precipitation and temperature on TEPC. The results show that: (1) The basic pattern of the terrestrial ecosystem developed in a relatively stable manner from 1995 to 2005 in the YREB, and transformations between the farmland ecosystem, forest ecosystem, and grassland ecosystem were more frequent. The temporal and spatial evolution of precipitation and temperature in the YREB showed significant regional differences. (2) There was a significant negative bivariate global spatial autocorrelation effect of precipitation and temperature on the area change of the forest ecosystem, and a positive effect on the area change of the settlement ecosystem. The local spatial correlation between precipitation or temperature and the terrestrial ecosystem showed significant scattered distribution characteristics. (3) The impacts of precipitation and temperature on TEPC showed significant regional characteristics on the provincial scale. The impact utility in the tail region is basically negative, while both positive and negative effects exist in the central and head regions of the YREB. Moreover, the impact showed significant spatial heterogeneity on the city scale. (4) The Chinese government has promulgated policies and measures for strategic planning, ecological environment protection, and economic support, which could effectively promote ecological and sustainable development of the YREB and promote the coordinated development of the ecology, economy, and society in China.

Ecological carrying capacity is an important factor of sustainable development for cities, and a critical part of achieving the coordinated development of the social economic and ecological environment for urban agglomerations. In order to evaluate the regional ecological carrying capacity and provide a basis for decision-making for regional sustainable development, this paper constructs an ecological carrying capacity model for the urban agglomeration from two dimensions: ecological carrying elastic force and ecological carrying pressure. The analytic hierarchy process is utilized to determine the weights of nine indices in these two dimensions. For the Yangtze River urban agglomeration, the comprehensive index of its ecological carrying capacity is investigated quantitatively, and the spatial distribution map of its comprehensive index measuring ecological carrying capacity is computed. The results show that Nanjing, Yangzhou, Taizhou, and Changzhou are in the stage of high load carrying; Suzhou, Wuxi, Nantong, and Zhenjiang are in the stage of low load carrying. In addition, the environmental protection investment has the greatest impact on ecological carrying elastic force, followed by the proportion of the tertiary industry; wastewater discharge has the greatest impact on ecological carrying pressure. The level of ecological carrying capacity varies within the region. It is necessary to take measures to increase the ecological carrying elastic force and reduce the ecological carrying pressure according to the actual conditions in each region. Meanwhile, exchanges and cooperation between different regions should be strengthened to stimulate the coordinated and sustainable development.

Neoliberal conservation has recently become a topic of academic research and a method of practice within the context of globalization. Less attention has been given to how neoliberal conservation has been practiced at the urban scale. This paper draws on the concept of 'urban-growth-oriented green grabbing' to capture the multidimensionality of the reasoning and process of ecological conservation in an urban growth context. It focuses on two ecological spatial protection plans for the DaPeng Peninsula in the city of Shenzhen, China. Through empirical investigation, this article traces the political economy of these plans and draws out the insights they offer regarding theories of urban environmentalism. The empirical results show that the ecological conservation plans are best understood as 'green grabbing' that has been achieved by land transfer and spatial interest redistribution. Conceptually, the paper provides further evidence of the process of neoliberal conservation within the urban context.

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, including Shanghai City and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, is the largest metropolitan region in China. In the past three decades, the region has experienced an unprecedented process of rapid and massive urbanization, which has dramatically altered the landscape and detrimentally affected the ecological environments in the region. In this paper, we analyzed the spatiotemporal variations of ecological conditions (Eco_C) via a synthetic index with analytic hierarchy processes in the YRD during 1990⁻2010. The relative contributions of influencing factors, including two natural conditions (i.e., elevation (Elev) and land-sea gradient (Dis_coa)), three indicators of human activities (i.e., urbanization rate (Urb_rate), per capita GDP (Per_gdp), the percentage of secondary and tertiary industry employment (Per_ind)), to the total variance of regional Eco_C were also investigated. The results showed that: (1) The Eco_C over YRD region was "Moderately High", which was better than the national average and demonstrated obvious spatial variations between south and north. There existed fluctuations and an overall increasing trend for Eco_C during the study period, with 20% of the area being deteriorated and 40% being improved. (2) The areas with elevation below 10 m was relatively poor in Eco_C, while the regions above 1000 m showed the best Eco_C and had the most obvious changes (9.33%) during the study period. (3) The selected five influencing factors could explain 91.0⁻94.4% of the Eco_C spatial variability. Elevation was the dominant factor for about 42.4⁻52.9%, while urbanization rate and per capita GDP were about 32.5% and 9.3%.

Ecological efficiency (eco-efficiency) reflects the synergetic degree of the development of resource, economic, and environmental systems. This paper measures urban eco-efficiency based on a nonconvex metafrontier data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach using data from 191 cities in China during the years of 2003 to 2013. In particular, the impacts of dynamic agglomeration externalities on urban eco-efficiency are investigated. Our empirical results show that eco-efficiency decreased from 2003 to 2013, and its spatial distribution demonstrates significant regional heterogeneity. Additionally, there exists an inverted U-shape relationship between dynamic externalities, including Marshall-Arrow-Romer (MAR), Jacobs and Porter externalities, and eco-efficiency. We also find that eco-efficiency can be enhanced by strengthening environmental regulations, optimizing industrial structures, and improving technological capacity. These findings are robust to alternative eco-efficiency measures, model specifications, and estimation approaches. Furthermore, we discuss related policy implications of our research results.

Ecological security and environmental sustainability are the foundations of sustainable development. With the acceleration of urbanization, increasing human activities have promoted greater impacts on the eco-spaces that maintain ecological security. Regional key eco-space has become the primary need to maintain environmental sustainability and can offer society with continued ecosystem services. In this paper, considering the security of water resources, biodiversity conservation, disaster avoidance and protection and natural recreation, an integrated index of eco-space importance was established and a method for identifying key eco-space was created using GIS, with Lanzhou City, China as a case study. The results show that the area of core eco-space in the Lanzhou City is approximately 50,908.7 hm(2), accounting for 40% of the region's total area. These areas mainly consist of geological hazard protection zones and the core zones of regional river systems, wetlands, nature reserves, forest parks and scenic spots. The results of this study provide some guidance for the management of ecological security, ecological restoration and environmental sustainability.

Located on the east side of China's Qinghai–Tibet Plateau is the Western Sichuan Plateau, the courtyard adopts a passive design to withstand the harsh climate in cold areas, and its internal thermal environment has a direct impact on the productivity and activities of the residents. This paper takes a plateau village (3500 m above sea level) beside the Sichuan–Tibet line as the research area, and selects four typical local courtyard layouts and an outdoor reference point for the measurement and comparison of the thermal environment. By comparing the measured parameters inside and outside the courtyard, and the correlation analysis, it was deduced as follows. (1) In the cold winter, traditional plateau residential courtyards can create a stable internal micro-climate, but the cold resistance of the courtyards is closely related to its layout. (2) Except for wind speed, other thermal environment parameters of the courtyard are all affected by solar radiation (3) The correlation analysis of the various environmental parameters and physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) showed that the correlation coefficient between the mean radiation temperature (Tmrt) and all courtyard PET values is <0.0001, showing a significant correlation. The indicators of mean temperature radiation are mainly affected by the temperature and the wind speed; furthermore, the temperature and solar radiation are positively correlated, which confirms that the solar radiation and wind speed within the courtyard are the main factors affecting the internal thermal environment in the courtyard. (4) Feedback the courtyard layout problems through the difference in the thermal environment parameters within different courtyards, and then determine some shortcomings in the current courtyard layout design. The inferences drawn from this work will provide a scientific basis for the design, layout, and construction of courtyards in other cold plateau areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prefabricated buildings have the characteristics of being energy saving, protecting the environment, being labor saving and having a fast construction speed, which meet the requirement for the sustainable development of the construction industry and are been strongly supported by the country. However, the promotion of prefabricated buildings in China is still in its infancy, with numerous barriers, and the correlation between these factors is not well tested. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify the main obstacles to the promotion of prefabricated buildings, clarify the correlation between the main barriers and classify them, so as to propose targeted promotion strategies. Combined with the PEST theory and the technology–organization–environment framework, this study has established a list of 27 barriers including policy, the economy, society, technology and management, through a literature review. Experts were invited to complete a questionnaire survey to assess the relative importance of barriers, and 15 major barriers were identified based on the analytic hierarchy process method. We conducted semi-structured interviews, determined the direct relationship between various barriers, established the adjacency matrix and calculated the reachability matrix, established the multi-level hierarchical structure model based on interpretative structural modeling, used Matrices Impacts Croises–Multiplication Appliance Classement to classify factors, and then proposed the industry–organization–project three-level promotion strategy according to the classification results. The results showed that technical factors accounted for the largest proportion in the list of barriers, followed by society, the economy, political factors and, finally, management factors. The main obstacles to the popularization of prefabricated buildings can be divided into three categories: autonomous variables, dependent variables and driver variables. It is necessary to put forward countermeasures from different dimensions to promote the application of prefabricated buildings. This study provides a practical reference for future research, attempts to provide solutions to promote the popularization of prefabricated buildings and also provides methodological guidance for similar research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has committed to ambitious targets to reduce its carbon emissions in the next decades, in order to combat climate change and improve the environment. The realization of the targets depends on the fair and effective mitigation plans of all provinces. However, with varying ecological and environmental conditions and social-economic development, it is a critical issue to quantify the provinces' efforts equally. This paper proposed a comprehensive fE index in coordinating ecology, equity and economy, by accounting for carbon emissions and sinks to characterize provincial carbon emission status in China, from 2000 to 2017, which shows a spatial pattern of "boundary high, central low". The provinces with higher fE value (>1.5) in boundary areas can be seen as "relative equality" provinces with good ecology circulation, equity and economic efficiency. The provinces with lower fE value (<0.7) in central areas around Bohai Bay are regarded as "severe inequality" provinces, and are identified as the hot-spot provinces, which have emitted more CO2 than their equity share by occupying the carbon emission space of other provinces in recent decades. These results could provide a reference for a provincial guide for carbon reduction and sustainable development of the low-carbon economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By 2020, there will be 2.36 million natural villages in China, with more than 500 million people living in them. Although China's 2018 "National Rural Revitalization Strategy" has clarified the importance of the rural environment, the sustainability of living environments in rural settlements is generally ignored. However, current renovation work is implemented as per the same set of standards and is not sufficient to reach the highest satisfaction levels and sustainable development because the optimal renovation indicators are not selected according to local conditions. To address these issues, this work carried out a series of literature reviews and expert interviews to propose indicators applicable to the sustainable renovation of living environments in rural settlements in China. The questionnaire survey was conducted in a typical Chinese village in order to verify the feasibility of this decision model. Furthermore, the Kano model was organically combined with the importance–satisfaction (IS) model from the villagers' point of view to establish a model analyzing the optimal indicators of the sustainable renovation. The results show that this model determines the priority of elements that need to be improved or maintained, based on which village administrators can make better management decisions and which government managers can invest limited government resources in key sectors, thus creating sustainable living environments in rural settlements and enhancing the satisfaction of villagers. It is suggested that the opinions of village administrators and planners be considered to optimize this model further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taxon delimitation and identification are important in many areas of biology, especially in taxonomy and conservation. Taxonomic treatment is required to establish and justify recommendations in conservation biology for the group being considered. Imperfect and controversial taxonomy can undermine conservation assessment. We studied 71 populations; 665 individuals corresponding to the morphology of the Rosa sericea complex (including six taxa, one of which has extremely narrow distributions) were collected from sympatric, parapatric, and allopatric populations distributed in China. This study aims to investigate whether the complex species are macromorphologically different species and evaluate the rare taxa of the complex for conservation priority. The morphological characters and principal component analysis (PCA) of the R. sericea complex showed that the complex species have overlapping characters but can distinguish morphologically. The species of R. sericea complex systematics status based on previous DNA sequencing is controversial. The ecological habitat's current morphological characters only delimit the R. morrisonensis (in Taiwan). To evade mistakes in species conservation, we recommend that taxonomical knowledge be needed to ensure success in protecting target species. Thus, the complementarity of systemic and conservation assurance makes conservation actions more necessary for the complex's rare taxa. The ecological niche modelling (ENM) results showed that habitats of these conspecific taxa would be shrunken. With the presence of snapshots in time, the geography of taxa might decrease rapidly in representative entirely of the Geographic space (G-space) and Environmental space (E-space) that such taxa are bright to inhabit. So far, the significant inferences meant for the niche occupy the most incredible comparative research, taking the impermanent nature of taxa distributions and undertaking that such species are at a state of stability. If the artificially identified species (rarely distributed) are based on morphological identification, they must be conserved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wood-inhabiting fungi are a cosmopolitan group and show a rich diversity, growing in the vegetation of boreal, temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions. Xylodon grandineus, X. punctus, and X. wenshanensis spp. nov. were found in the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, China, suggested here to be new fungal species in light of their morphology and phylogeny. Xylodon grandineus is characterized by a grandinioid hymenophore and ellipsoid basidiospores; X. punctus has a membranous hymenophore, a smooth hymenial surface with a speckled distribution, and absent cystidia; X. wenshanensis has a grandinioid hymenophore with a cream to slightly buff hymenial surface and cystidia of two types. Sequences of the ITS and nLSU rRNA markers of the studied samples were generated, and phylogenetic analyses were performed using the maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony, and Bayesian inference methods. After a series of phylogenetic studies, the ITS+nLSU analysis of the order Hymenochaetales indicated that, at the generic level, six genera (i.e., Fasciodontia, Hastodontia, Hyphodontia, Lyomyces, Kneiffiella, and Xylodon) should be accepted to accommodate the members of Hyphodontia sensu lato. According to a further analysis of the ITS dataset, X. grandineus was retrieved as a sister to X. nesporii; X. punctus formed a monophyletic lineage and then grouped with X. filicinus, X. hastifer, X. hyphodontinus, and X. tropicus; and X. wenshanensis was a sister to X. xinpingensis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive vegetation restoration projects have been widely implemented on the Loess Plateau, China, since 1998. In addition, increasing attention has been paid to the influence of revegetation on soil water. However, the response of the soil water content (SWC) to vegetation construction and management has not been adequately studied. In this study, three types of typical artificial vegetation on level bench land were selected, including Pinus tabulaeformis Carr., Prunus sibirica L., and Hippophae rhamnoides Linn., with the natural grassland used as a control group in Wuqi County. The 0-160 cm SWC was monitored biweekly from August 2010 to June 2013 using a portable time domain reflectometry system. The serial autocorrelation test, Mann-Kendall trend test, and prewhitening Mann-Kendall test were employed to systematically analyze the trends in soil water dynamics. The results show that the SWC of the three selected artificial forests/shrub had a significant accumulation process in the 0-160 cm profile during the monitoring period, whereas such an increasing tendency was not observed for natural grassland. Furthermore, the greatest responses were observed in the Pinus tabulaeformis Carr. plantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater wetland in China, provides critical habitat for wintering waterbirds from the East Asian Flyway; however, landscape drivers of non-uniform bird diversity and abundance are not yet well understood. Using a winter 2006 waterbird survey, we examined the relationships among metrics of bird community diversity and abundance and landscape characteristics of 51 wetland sub-lakes derived by an object-based classification of Landsat satellite data. Relative importance of predictors and their sets was assessed using information-theoretic model selection and the Akaike Information Criterion. Ordinary least squares regression models were diagnosed and corrected for spatial autocorrelation using spatial autoregressive lag and error models. The strongest and most consistent landscape predictors included Normalized Difference Vegetation Index for mudflat (negative effect) and emergent grassland (positive effect), total sub-lake area (positive effect), and proportion of submerged vegetation (negative effect). Significant spatial autocorrelation in linear regression was associated with local clustering of response and predictor variables, and should be further explored for selection of wetland sampling units and management of protected areas. Overall, results corroborate the utility of remote sensing to elucidate potential indicators of waterbird diversity that complement logistically challenging ground observations and offer new hypotheses on factors underlying community distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large decrease in the land surface albedo of the Loess Plateau was observed from 2000 to 2010, as measured using satellite imagery. In particular, ecological restoration program regions experienced a decrease in peak season land surface albedo exceeding 0.05. In this study, we examined the spatial and temporal patterns of variation during the peak season albedo in the Loess Plateau and analyzed its relationships with changes of anthropogenic and natural factors at the pixel level. Our analysis revealed that increasing grassland coverage due to returning rangeland to grassland could lead to a maximum albedo decrease of 0.030 in peak season. This result highlighted the human-induced land use change in driving the decreasing albedo on an annual scale. There was no significant correlation between precipitation change and albedo reduction. Precipitation could influence the spatial pattern of albedo in drought years by influencing the natural vegetation water requirement. However, the role of precipitation was not obvious in the ecological restoration program regions. This article demonstrates the substantial role that land use change could play in regional-scale albedo change and climate. Finally, some implications for the radiative forcing of land use change are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The fall armyworm Spodoptera frugiperda is an invasive pest, which can cause severe economic losses by larvae feeding on a variety of crops. To develop effective control technology, it is particularly necessary to study the basic biology and ecology of this invasive insect. This experiment investigated the development, survival, and reproduction and population growth of S. frugiperda on six cash crop species. This study indicated that S. frugiperda fed on maize and wheat had shorter preadult developmental durations, higher preadult survival, greater pupal weights and higher fecundity compared to the other four plants. Moreover, although the young larvae of S. frugiperda feeding on Chinese cabbage had a high mortality rate, the old larvae were voracious, which might still cause economic losses to Chinese cabbage. Our results showed that S. frugiperda could cause great economic losses to these cash crops, which should attract the attention of agricultural management departments. Spodoptera frugiperda is a significant migratory invasive pest, identified as a serious threat to agricultural production and food security in China. However, to our knowledge, the effects of most host plants on the biological characteristics of S. frugiperda have not been well studied. To develop effective management strategies for S. frugiperda in its new invasive habitat, basic biological and ecological knowledge of this pest are crucial requirements. Here, we examined the effects of six cash crops maize, wheat, soybean, tomato, cotton and Chinese cabbage on the development, survival, fecundity of S. frugiperda by using the age-stage, two-sex life table. The preadult stage, adult preoviposition period and total preoviposition period of S. frugiperda were shortest on maize and wheat but were longest on tomato. Fecundity was greatest on maize and wheat but smallest on tomato. The highest intrinsic rate of increase, finite rate of increase, net reproductive rate and the shortest mean generation time were recorded on maize. This present study showed that S. frugiperda could cause great economic losses to these cash crops, which should attract the attention of agricultural management departments. Our findings provide useful information in predicting population dynamics and understanding the potential damage that could be incurred by S. frugiperda invasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The yellow spotted stink bug (YSSB), Erthesina fullo Thunberg, is one of the most widely distributed phytophagous insect pests in Asia. YSSB is highly polyphagous and in China it feeds on over 57 host plants in 29 families, including some economically important fruit crops such as kiwifruit, pear, peach, apple, and pomegranate. With a primarily r-selected life history strategy, reproductive diapause, aggregation behavior, wide host range, high dispersal capacity, and close association with human-modified ecosystems, YSSB is a potentially invasive species that poses significant biosecurity threats to other countries outside its native range. This review summarizes basic and applied knowledge on the biology, ecology, and management of YSSB in China, with specific emphasis on its life history, host range, damage and impacts on economically important horticulture crops, and integrated pest management (IPM) approaches. The insights from the Chinese literature on this pest will help the countries outside its native range to conduct appropriate biosecurity risk assessments, develop a sound surveillance program, and develop an emergency response plan before its invasion of new geographic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, the use of certain standards to evaluate surface water quality in areas with high background values due to natural factors rather than to human activities results in water quality underestimation and thus affects regional water quality management and decision-making. Herein, we examined river source water function zones of the Heilongjang province characterised by high background values and analysed the corresponding water quality data acquired in 2011–2016. The examined samples featured elevated chemical oxygen demand (COD), permanganate index (CODMn), and ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) levels, which indicated that water quality was affected by the natural environment. The concentrations of background pollutants almost exceeded the limits stipulated by regional surface water quality standards and exhibited strong spatiotemporal variability. A three-step discrimination method including single index recognition, limiting factors, and a synthetic index was proposed to distinguish the background area among these zones for determining background values, and 10 complete background areas were identified. The background values of COD, CODMn, and NH3-N for the entire area were determined based on the data acquired during background area monitoring. Finally, considering the present procedure of water quality evaluation in China (single factor exponential method), a revised method based on background values was suggested. Thus, the evaluation results objectively and accurately reflect the regional water quality situation and therefore provide a scientific basis for the development of a better water quality assessment and management system in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible grade control structures (GCSs) are increasingly popular alternative countermeasures consisting of conventional solid structures for protecting riverbeds from erosion. Among this structure typology, tetrahedron framed permeable weirs (TFPW) were proposed to stabilize riverbeds and protect cross-river structures. The bed morphology as well as the interactions among the structures, water flow and bed features have not been systematically analyzed. Therefore, based on the field data collected in the Jianjiang River, a series of physical model experiments were carried out in this study to investigate the river morphology in unstable gravel-bed rivers under five different structural conditions, including no GCSs, solid bed sills and flexible TFPW with three different layout types. Data on bedform features, topography changes and the volume of erosion or deposition were collected and analyzed. The results indicated that dramatic general erosion and bed armoring would occur without any protection. The bed would be protected from upstream erosion with bed sills, but, at the same time, in addition to general erosion and bed armoring downstream of the structures, deep local scour might pose a serious threat to structural safety. TFPW had good protective effects on riverbeds by preventing the bed from erosion and even inducing sediment deposition both upstream and downstream from the structures. Because the flexible structures have advantages in ecology, structural stability and construction, TFPW were suitable and optimal for riverbed stabilization in unstable gravel-bed rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]