Photo 1. Over 13,718 alien plants have already been introduced in China for cultivation, and 987 of them are traded via online plant nurseries on 1688.com. The photograph shows a typical cultivated alien plant native to Central America, Monstera deliciosa Liebm., which has now been sold in at least 67 online nurseries on 1688.com. Photo credit: Ran Dong. Photo 2. Cactaceae and Crassulaceae are two of the most popular families of cultivated alien plants that are available on 1688.com. There are 183 taxa from these two families (the information was accessed 29 July – 15 August 2019). However, only 19.3% of them are naturalized and/or invasive, because most of them have only a short introduction history (34 years on average) and lack climatic suitability (2.4% on average). Photo credit: Ran Dong. Photo 3. Sphagneticola trilobata (L.) Pruski is one of the 46 invasive cultivated plants that are available on 1688.com. Due to its fast growth and reproduction capabilities, as well as its adaptation to the local environment, this species is considered one of the most invasive in China. Even so, it is still being traded and used for urban greening. Photo credit: Zhi-Cong Dai. These photographs illustrate the article “Cultivated alien plants with high invasion potential are more likely to be traded online in China” by Ran Dong, Bi-Cheng Dong, Qiu-Yue Fu, Qiang Yang, Zhi-Cong Dai, Fang-Li Luo, Jun-Qin Gao, Fei-Hai Yu, and Mark van Kleunen published in Ecological Applications. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2811.
Real-time estimates of volumetric minute ventilation (MV) can now be made through wearable sensors, allowing field studies to extend the personal exposure approach to more accurately account for impact of physical activity and calculation of the potential inhaled dose (PID) or intake of air pollutants. The Hexoskin biometric shirt includes sensors for all three proxy methods for estimating minute ventilation: dual band respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP), heart rate (HR) and accelerometry (ACC). Laboratory validation of the sensors against a gold standard has been reported on previously. Here we will provide our experience in an ongoing field study of biking commuters who self-deploy the shirt and additional monitors for up to six 24 hour periods over a 3 week period. Data completeness from the biometric shirt sensors is high with only 6 out of 327 attempted sessions missing data (2%); within the obtained data, the percentage with valid data are 89% for the dual band RIP sensors, 80% for the HR monitor and 88% for the ACC. Poorly fitting shirts can impact the RIP or HR sensors (or both), with poor fits occurring more frequently on females. Failure of all three sensors simultaneously is rare allowing missing data to be filled in from other working sensors based on individual level comparisons. MV values during sleep appear anomalously low for a large fraction of participants (median 5.0 L/min, IQR 3.6 - 7.0 L/min) and 0.06% of RIP derived values appear above physiological reasonable values, leading to the use of replacement values. Final cleaned MV data derived from the shirt show a much wider range, both between subjects and within subjects, than the EPA reference values, suggesting exposure misclassification can occur if relying upon reference values for calculating PID.
The status of treatment equipment, the emission characteristics, and the ozone formation potential (OFP) of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for 11 typical enterprises, which were categorized into the 8 major VOC emission industries identified by the emission inventory of a typical city in the Yangtze River Delta, are discussed in this paper. There was a large difference in the removal efficiency of non-methane hydrocarbon (NMHC) between different treatment techniques, and even an increase in concentration occurred after some of the treatments. The current treatment equipment for VOCs needs further optimization. The emissions of NMHC, benzene, toluene, and xylene in most of the surveyed enterprises exceeded their corresponding standards, with toluene the worst offender. The most abundant compounds in the eight emission industries were aromatic hydrocarbons and oxygenated VOCs, whereas aromatic hydrocarbons contributed the most to ozone formation potential. There were large differences in emission characteristics of VOCs from different industries. Priority should be placed on the industries that have large OFP when control strategies of VOCs are considered.
Exotic plant species may exhibit abiotic niche expansions that enable them to persist in a greater variety of habitat types in their introduced ranges than in their native ranges. This may reflect variation in limitation by different abiotic niche dimensions (realized niche shift) or phenotypic effects of biotic interactions that vary among ranges (realized niche expansion). Novel abiotic and biotic environments in the introduced range may also lead to genetic changes in exotic plant traits that enhance their abiotic stress tolerance (fundamental niche expansion). Here, we investigated how biotic interactions (aboveground herbivory and soil organisms) affect plant salinity tolerance using the invasive species Triadica sebifera from China (native range) and US (introduced range) populations grown in common gardens in both ranges. Simulated herbivory significantly reduced survival in saline treatments with reductions especially large at low salinity. Soil sterilization had a negative effect on survival at low salinity in China but had a positive effect on survival at low salinity in the US. Triadica survival and biomass were higher for US populations than for China populations, particularly in China but salinity tolerance did not depend on population origin. On average, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) colonization was higher for US populations, US soils and low salinity. These factors had a significant, positive, non‐additive interaction so that clipped seedlings from US populations in low saline US soils had high levels of AM colonization. Overall, our results show that phenotypic biotic interactions shape Triadica 's salinity tolerance. Positive and negative biotic interactions together affected plant performance at intermediate stress levels. However, only aboveground damage consistently affected salinity tolerance, suggesting an important role for enemy release in expanding stress tolerance.
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