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The shipping industry plays an important role in international trade and world economic development. In particular, the rapid growth of the shipping industry since 2020 has become an important factor in supporting and stimulating the rapid recovery of the global economy in the post epidemic era. However, under the background that climate warming has increasingly become the theme of common concern for all mankind, greenhouse gas emission reduction has increasingly attracted the attention of governments of all countries, and has also become the requirement for production and operation of all industries, the green, environmental protection and sustainable development of the shipping industry have also become the focus of participants in all sectors. As environmental problems put forward requirements of a green shipping industry, some policies aimed at reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon tax, have brought considerations to the strategies of ports and enterprises, especially concerning their competition and cooperation. This study established a shipping supply chain system composed of two ports and one shipping company in order to analyse the impact of carbon tax on the shipping supply chain, and to optimize the decision‐making of government, ports and shipping companies. Through three‐level Stackelberg game of four models including ports cooperating or not cooperating with each other, and carbon tax levied on ports or the shipping company, the study finds that the collection of carbon tax will reduce the container handling volume of ports thus reducing the profits of both ports and the shipping company, but the handling volume when the government puts carbon tax on ports is lower than that when it puts carbon tax on the shipping company, and the handling volume under the port cooperation mode is lower than that under the port non‐cooperation mode. As the collector of carbon tax, the government's income when taxing ports is higher than that when taxing shipping companies, and when ports cooperate, the government's income is lower than that when ports do not cooperate. Moreover, no matter the ports cooperate with each other or not, the impact of carbon tax on port container handling volume under the mode of carbon tax levied by the government on ports is more significant than that when carbon tax is levied on the shipping company, leaving the former mode a lower container handling volume and lower profit. The findings of this study have the following significance and suggestions for the participants of shipping supply industry: In order to maximize the government's target value, the government should give priority to taxing shipping companies rather than ports; Under the background of carbon tax, ports should choose limited non‐cooperation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bacterial communities inhabiting the soil of mountain ecosystems perform critical ecological functions. Although several studies have reported the altitudinal distribution patterns of bacterial communities in warm-temperate mountain forests, our understanding of typical zonal vegetation dominated by Larix principis-rupprechtii Mayr (abbreviated as larch hereafter) and the understory elevation distribution patterns of soil bacterial communities is still limited. In this study, the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 sequencing platform was used to investigate the changes of surface and subsurface soil bacterial communities along an altitudinal gradient (from 1720 m to 2250 m) in larch forests in northern China. Altitude significantly affected the relative abundance of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Chloroflexi (bacterial dominant phylum) and Alphaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, and Actinobacteria (bacterial dominant classes). The diversity of bacterial communities showed a concomitant increase with altitude. The variations in available nitrogen and soil temperature content at different altitudes were the main factors explaining the bacterial community structures in pure stands and mixed stands, respectively. Altitude and the contents of soil organic carbon and soil organic matter were the main factors explaining the dominant phylum (taxonomy). Our results suggest that stand type has a greater effect on the structure and composition of soil bacterial communities than elevation and soil depth, and bacterial communities show divergent patterns along the altitudes, stand types, and soil profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many firms have turned to logistics outsourcing as a way to restructure their distribution networks and gain competitive advantages. Logistics outsourcing in which a third party logistics (3PL) provider is contracted for all or part of an organization's logistics operations has seen consistently increasing use. Although there are clearly pros and cons of using logistics outsourcing, the full extent of both of these has not been adequately examined. This paper begins to examine some of these risks and discusses some risk reduction measures.

Under the background of the green maritime transportation, green investment and vertical alliances between port and shipping enterprises are effective ways to reduce maritime emissions. In this paper, we consider a maritime supply chain consisting of a port, a shipping company, and a forwarder. The port and shipping company determine individual green investment to reduce emission pollution. There are three vertical alliance strategies for the shipping company under green investment: no alliance, alliance with the port, and alliance with the forwarder. We obtain the optimal alliance strategy under the same green investment entity and the optimal choice for the investment entity under the same alliance strategy. In addition, we analyze the impacts of different alliance strategies and investment entities on consumer surplus and social welfare. The results show that whether the port implements the green investment or the shipping company implements green investment, when all three alliance strategies are feasible, there is always a higher green investment level, a higher demand, and a lower shipping service charge, and alliance strategies lead to greater profits for the maritime supply chain. Under the same alliance strategy, the choice of investment entity is affected by the green investment cost coefficient. If the green investment cost coefficient of the investor is too high, then the enterprise's green investment cannot improve the maritime supply chain profit. Therefore, port and shipping enterprises should reasonably set green input according to their own conditions to maximize the profit of maritime supply chain. Vertical alliances can improve environmental performance as well as increase consumer surplus and social welfare. In particular, under the shipping company green investment, alliance between the shipping company and downstream forwarder can precisely grasp the market demand and achieve the optimal social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since dual channel supply chain has become one of the main modes of supply chain, its research has acquired great significance. This paper constructs a low-carbon dual channel supply chain composed of one manufacturer and one retailer. The manufacturer produces low-carbon product and high carbon product with substitution relationship. The retailer sells high carbon product in traditional channel. The manufacturer also sells low-carbon product in direct channel. The government, manufacturer and retailer conduct a three-level Stackelberg game. This paper studies the optimal decisions of the government, manufacturer and retailer under the three modes of carbon tax + subsidy, carbon tax only and subsidy only. It has been found that for social welfare, the carbon tax + subsidy model is higher than the subsidy model and carbon tax model. For manufacturer profit, the subsidy mode is the highest, followed by the carbon tax + subsidy mode. For retailer profit, the carbon tax + subsidy model is equal to the carbon tax model. The increase in the proportion of consumers who prefer high carbon product in the total market or product cost of low-carbon product, will increase the profit of traditional channel and reduce the profit of direct channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]