Strong functional stability of soil microbial communities under semiarid Mediterranean conditions and subjected to long-term shifts in baseline precipitation

We investigated the effect of soil microclimate on the structure and functioning of soil microbial communities in a Mediterranean Holm-oak forest subjected to 10 years of partial rain exclusion manipulations, simulating average drought conditions expected in Mediterranean areas for the following decades. We applied a high throughput DNA pyrosequencing technique coupled to parallel measurements of microbial respiration (R_H) and temperature sensitivity of microbial respiration (Q₁₀). Some consistent changes in the structure of bacterial communities suggest a slow process of community shifts parallel to the trend towards oligotrophy in response to long-term droughts. However, the structure of bacterial communities was mainly determined by short-term environmental fluctuations associated with sampling date (winter, spring and summer) rather than long-term (10 years) shifts in baseline precipitation. Moreover, long-term drought did not exert any chronic effect on the functioning of soil microbial communities (R_H and Q₁₀), emphasizing the functional stability of these communities to this long-term but mild shifts in water availability. We hypothesize that the particular conditions of the Mediterranean climate with strong seasonal shifts in both temperature and soil water availability but also characterized by very extreme environmental conditions during summer, was acting as a strong force in community assembling, selecting phenotypes adapted to the semiarid conditions characterizing Mediterranean ecosystems. Relations of climate with the phylogenetic structure and overall diversity of the communities as well as the distribution of the individual responses of different lineages (genera) to climate confirmed our hypotheses, evidencing communities dominated by thermotolerant and drought-tolerant phenotypes.     

基于信息抽取的食品安全事件自动问答系统方法研究

针对从海量食品安全事件新闻报道中很难抽取出所需答案的问题，以食品安全事件语料库为研究对象，提出了一种基于信息抽取技术的自动问答系统。首先，利用深度学习模型TextCNN对用户输入的问题进行分类，得到其所属类型。其次，对于输入问题，借助Lucene搜索引擎找到其最佳匹配文档。再次，根据输入问题的类型，从食品安全事件数据库（采用信息抽取技术自动提取的一个结构化数据库）中筛选出该文档所包含的答案候选句集合。最后，利用深度学习模型Bi LSTM及基于答案候选句上下文的特征提取方法构建一个答案抽取模型，该模型能从给定的答案候选句集合中提取出最终答案。为检查基于食品安全事件数据库的答案候选句筛选方式及基于答案候选句上下文的特征提取方式对整个自动问答系统性能的影响，进行了多种比较实验，结果表明含有基于食品安全事件数据库的答案候选句筛选方式和基于答案候选句上下文的特征提取方式的问答系统表现最佳，其回答准确率达到44%。这相比于传统的问答系统，具有明显的优势。     

植物-植食性昆虫互作关系中早期信号事件研究进展

诱导防御反应的产生取决于植物对植食性昆虫相关信号迅速和准确地识别。在植物与植食性昆虫互作过程中,早期信号事件是负责植物识别和触发下游信号转导途径的最早反应,它们发生在植物防御相关基因表达和防御相关代谢物产生之前,对植物的防御过程至关重要。本文将植物与植食性昆虫互作的早期事件,包括植物对植食性昆虫的感知、电信号和Ca~(2+)信号的产生和转导,活性氧的迸发以及促细胞分裂原活化蛋白激酶(MAPK)信号级联途径等研究进展进行了综述,并提出今后的研究重点与方向,促进对植物诱导防御反应调控网络的研究,以期为改进农业害虫的治理提供重要的理论和技术支撑。     

The importance of environment and life stage on interpretation of silky shark relative abundance indices for the equatorial Pacific Ocean

Recent large fluctuations in an index of relative abundance for the silky shark in the eastern Pacific Ocean have called into question its reliability as a population indicator for management. To investigate whether these fluctuations were driven by environmental forcing rather than true changes in abundance, a Pacific‐wide approach was taken. Data collected by observers aboard purse‐seine vessels fishing in the equatorial Pacific were used to compute standardized trends in relative abundance by region, and where possible, by shark size category as a proxy for life stage. These indices were compared to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), an index of Pacific Ocean climate variability. Correlation between silky indices and the PDO was found to differ by region and size category. The highest correlations by shark size category were for small (<90 cm total length [TL]) and medium (90–150 cm TL) sharks from the western region of the equatorial eastern Pacific (EP) and from the equatorial western Pacific. This correlation disappeared in the inshore EP. Throughout, correlations with the PDO were generally lower for large silky sharks (>150 cm TL). These results are suggestive of changes in the small and medium silky indices being driven by movement of juvenile silky sharks across the Pacific as the eastern edge of the Indo‐Pacific Warm Pool shifts location with ENSO events. Lower correlation of the PDO with large shark indices may indicate that those indices were less influenced by environmental forcing and therefore potentially less biased with respect to monitoring population trends.     

Impact of short‐term climate effects and sea ice coverage variation on Japanese scallop aquaculture in Saroma Lake,Japan

Saroma Lake is the southernmost lagoon exhibiting seasonal sea ice coverage in the Northern hemisphere and one of the most important aquaculture areas for Japanese scallops (Mizuhopecten yessoensis). Under conditions of adequate food and appropriate temperature, scallops grow well from the time of ice melting in April to harvesting starting in July. However, over the past decade, Saroma Lake frequently has not been completely covered by ice in winter, and the production of Japanese scallops has shown significant changes. Therefore, this study integrated data from satellite remote sensing, buoys, and in situ observations with climatic events [the winter East Asian Monsoon (EAM) and El Niño/La Niña–Southern Oscillation events] to investigate the impact of ice coverage variations on scallop growth in Saroma Lake between 2007 and 2015. Daily ice conditions were detected using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer false colour images and an unsupervised classification method. The results indicated that EAM strongly influenced the ice coverage variation in Saroma Lake through their effects on temperature during winter. Ice coverage variations show a strong correlation with water temperature and spring phytoplankton blooms, which are the two most important environmental factors for scallop growth. In addition, extreme climate events could cause water temperature anomalies (as in 2015) which are unfavourable for scallop growth. Monitoring ice conditions should be considered when developing plans and management strategies for scallop aquaculture in Saroma Lake.     

近55年来河西地区干旱时空演变特征及其与ENSO事件的关系

根据河西地区14个气象站点1961-2015年的逐月气象观测资料，基于SPEI指数采用Mann-Kendall趋势检验法、反距离加权插值(IDW)等方法分析了近55年来河西地区年代际、四季干旱及空间变化特征，并探讨了ENSO 事件与该区干旱的关系。结果表明：在年代际变化上，自20世纪90年代以来河西地区干旱次数增多、干旱程度加重。季节时间变化上，河西地区春、夏、秋季均呈干旱化趋势，春季干旱化趋势最为突出，夏季次之，冬季略呈变湿趋势。空间变化上，整个河西地区春季均呈干旱化趋势，而且大部分地区的春旱趋势极为显著，其中春旱趋势最显著的地方是金塔；冬季整个研究区趋于湿润化。各季节干旱高频区分别集中在：春季在金塔、民勤地区，夏季在河西西北部，秋季在河西中东部及西部的安西—玉门一线，冬季在101°E以西的河西地区。河西地区秋季SPEI与SSTA指数的相关性最为显著，春季次之，夏季最弱。ENSO事件发生强度与河西地区SPEI影响因子的多项式拟合关系表明，ENSO事件强度对温度的影响高于降水；其中在ENSO暖事件(厄尔尼诺事件)发生年份，气温有明显的上升趋势；在ENSO冷事件(拉尼娜事件)发生年份，少数年份降水有所增加，对气温的影响较弱。     

Improving cereal yield forecasts in Europe – The impact of weather extremes

The impact of extreme events (such as prolonged droughts, heat waves, cold shocks and frost) is poorly represented by most of the existing yield forecasting systems. Two new model-based approaches that account for the impact of extreme weather events on crop production are presented as a way to improve yield forecasts, both based on the Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) of the European Commission. A first approach includes simple relations – consistent with the degree of complexity of the most generic crop simulators – to explicitly model the impact of these events on leaf development and yield formation. A second approach is a hybrid system which adds selected agro-climatic indicators (accounting for drought and cold/heat stress) to the previous one. The new proposed methods, together with the CGMS-standard approach and a system exclusively based on selected agro-climatic indicators, were evaluated in a comparative fashion for their forecasting reliability. The four systems were assessed for the main micro- and macro-thermal cereal crops grown in highly productive European countries. The workflow included the statistical post-processing of model outputs aggregated at national level with historical series (1995–2013) of official yields, followed by a cross-validation for forecasting events triggered at flowering, maturity and at an intermediate stage. With the system based on agro-climatic indicators, satisfactory performances were limited to microthermal crops grown in Mediterranean environments (i.e. crop production systems mainly driven by rainfall distribution). Compared to CGMS-standard system, the newly proposed approaches increased the forecasting reliability in 94% of the combinations crop × country × forecasting moment. In particular, the explicit simulation of the impact of extreme events explained a large part of the inter-annual variability (up to +44% for spring barley in Poland), while the addition of agro-climatic indicators to the workflow mostly added accuracy to an already satisfactory forecasting system.     

Impact analysis of climate data aggregation at different spatial scales on simulated net primary productivity for croplands

For spatial crop and agro-systems modelling, there is often a discrepancy between the scale of measured driving data and the target resolution. Spatial data aggregation is often necessary, which can introduce additional uncertainty into the simulation results. Previous studies have shown that climate data aggregation has little effect on simulation of phenological stages, but effects on net primary production (NPP) might still be expected through changing the length of the growing season and the period of grain filling. This study investigates the impact of spatial climate data aggregation on NPP simulation results, applying eleven different models for the same study region (∼34,000 km²), situated in Western Germany. To isolate effects of climate, soil data and management were assumed to be constant over the entire study area and over the entire study period of 29 years. Two crops, winter wheat and silage maize, were tested as monocultures. Compared to the impact of climate data aggregation on yield, the effect on NPP is in a similar range, but is slightly lower, with only small impacts on averages over the entire simulation period and study region. Maximum differences between the five scales in the range of 1–100 km grid cells show changes of 0.4–7.8% and 0.0–4.8% for wheat and maize, respectively, whereas the simulated potential NPP averages of the models show a wide range (1.9–4.2 g C m⁻² d⁻¹ and 2.7–6.1 g C m⁻² d⁻¹ for wheat and maize, respectively). The impact of the spatial aggregation was also tested for shorter time periods, to see if impacts over shorter periods attenuate over longer periods. The results show larger impacts for single years (up to 9.4% for wheat and up to 13.6% for maize). An analysis of extreme weather conditions shows an aggregation effect in vulnerability up to 12.8% and 15.5% between the different resolutions for wheat and maize, respectively. Simulations of NPP averages over larger areas (e.g. regional scale) and longer time periods (several years) are relatively insensitive to climate data aggregation. However, the scale of climate data is more relevant for impacts on annual averages of NPP or if the period is strongly affected or dominated by drought stress. There should be an awareness of the greater uncertainty for the NPP values in these situations if data are not available at high resolution. On the other hand, the results suggest that there is no need to simulate at high resolution for long term regional NPP averages based on the simplified assumptions (soil and management constant in time and space) used in this study.     

小鼠早期胚发育的全程组织切片观察

【目的】对小鼠早期胚发育全程进行系统的石蜡切片观察，为小鼠胚胎工程研究提供详细资料。【方法】通过体内受精方法获得小鼠早期胚胎，利用大体解剖及石蜡切片技术,观察受精卵至扩张囊胚的早期胚发育全程，用数码显微镜系统拍照。【结果】利用石蜡切片HE染色方法观察受精卵至扩张囊胚的形态结构，图像色彩对比度适当，可以准确生动地显示胚胎结构及在输卵管与子宫中的分布情况。【结论】获得了小鼠受精卵至扩张囊胚早期胚胎发育全程图谱。