Nature reserves are an important component of the strategy to halt biodiversity loss caused by habitat fragmentation and loss, climate change and other anthropogenic factors. In the past decades, 184 nature reserves were designed for biodiversity conservation in Inner Mongolia. However, no studies have quantified the general condition of these reserves. In this paper, we summarized the history,...

The Hengduan Mountains, with a distinct altitudinal differentiation and strong vertical vegetation zonation, occupy an important position in southwestern China as a global hotspot of biodiversity. Pollen analysis of lake sediments sampled along an altitudinal gradient in this region helps us to understand how this vegetation zonation arose and how it has responded to climate change and human im...

By comparing the sex-specifically inheritedX chromosome to the autosomes in ancient genetic samples,we (1) studied sex-specific admixture for two prehistoric migrations. For each migration we used several admixture estimation procedures—including ADMIXTURE model-based clustering (2)—to compare X-chromosomal and autosomal ancestry in contemporaneous Central Europeans and we interpreted greater a...

Grassland biomass is essential for maintaining grassland ecosystems. Moreover, biomass is an important characteristic of grassland. In this study, we combined field sampling with remote sensing data and calculated five vegetation indices (VIs). Using this combined information, we quantified a remote sensing estimation model and estimated biomass in a temperate grassland of northern China. We al...

The Loess Plateau region of northwestern China has unique geological and dry/semi-dry climate characteristics. However, knowledge about ectomycorrhizal fungal (EMF) communities in the Loess Plateau is limited. In this study, we investigated EMF communities in Populus simonii and Pinus tabuliformis patches within the forest-steppe zone, in pine forests within the forest zone, and the transitiona...

Global or regional environmental changes in climate or land use have been increasingly implied in shifts in boundaries (ecotones) between adjacent ecosystems such as beech or oak-dominated forests and forest-steppe ecotones that frequently co-occur near the southern range limits of deciduous forest biome in Europe. Yet, our ability to detect changes in biological communities across these ecosys...

AIM Understanding and predicting ecosystem functioning such as biomass accumulation requires an accurate assessment of large-scale patterns of biomass distribution and partitioning in relation to climatic and soil environments. METHODS We sampled above- and belowground biomass from 26 sites spanning 1500 km in Inner Mongolian grasslands, compared the difference in aboveground, belowground bio...

The latest reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) raised concerns regarding the future of low-productivity farming systems, which are often those most worthy of environmental conservation. In Spain, the conservation of the cereal-steppe avifauna, a community of European importance, relies on the continuity of low-intensity cereal systems and traditional cultivation patterns. In...

To account for the vastness of the northern arid steppes during Glacial episodes, I propose the proximate key variable was simply frequent clear skies. This hitherto under-emphasized point is the hub which best explains many questions. Low maritime cloud cover best accounts for today's tundra, and in a related way, the cloudy Polar Front accounts for the whole of the taiga. Even during Glacial ...