Geometric series exists in nature: Evidence from sorted area sequences of floral parts and leaves.

The concept of a geometric series (GS) plays an important role in mathematics. However, it has been neglected in describing biological size series. Herein, we show that a GS describes the nonreproductive (perianth) parts of the flowers of four Magnoliaceae species and two Rosaceae species and the leaves of 60 Alangium chinense and 60 Shibataea chinensis shoots.

Optimization of Quartz Sand-Enhanced Coagulation for Sewage Treatment by Response Surface Methodology.

The quartz sand-enhanced coagulation (QSEC) is an improved coagulation method for treating water, which uses quartz sand as a heavy medium to accelerate the sedimentation rate of flocs and reduce the sedimentation time. The factors that influence the QSEC effect and can be controlled manually include the quartz sand dosage, coagulant dosage, sewage pH, stirring time, settling time, etc., and their reasonable setting is critical to the result of water treatment.

Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria Influence Microbial Community Composition and Metabolic Function to Enhance the Efficiency of Remediation in Cadmium-Contaminated Soil.

The green and efficient remediation of soil cadmium (Cd) is an urgent task, and plant-microbial joint remediation has become a research hotspot due to its advantages. High-throughput sequencing and metabolomics have technical advantages in analyzing the microbiological mechanism of plant growth-promoting bacteria in improving phytoremediation of soil heavy metal pollution. In this experiment, a pot trial was conducted to investigate the effects of inoculating the plant growth-promoting bacterium sp.

Plant growth-promoting bacteria improve the Cd phytoremediation efficiency of soils contaminated with PE-Cd complex pollution by influencing the rhizosphere microbiome of sorghum.

Composite pollution by microplastics and heavy metals poses a potential threat to the soilplant system and has received increasing attention. Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) have good application potential for the remediation of combined microplastic and heavy metal pollution, but few related studies exist. The present study employed a pot experiment to investigate the effects of inoculation with the PGPB Bacillus sp.

Quantifying cumulative changes in water quality caused by small floodgates in Taihu Lake Basin - A case in Wuxi.

Small floodgates in the river network area own some characteristics: considerable quantity, wide range and short adjustment time, and intercepts the one-dimensional constant flow of rivers, which induce a great impact on riverine water quality. In this study, a typical urban floodgate-controlled reach was selected, and analyzed through the monthly data of four pollutant indicators TN, TP, COD and NH-N at six sampling sites S1-S6 in 2016-2018. The principal component analysis and correlation analysis showed that TP was a representative indicator and there was a positive correlation between various pollutants.

What is the role of aerosol transmission in SARS-Cov-2 Omicron spread in Shanghai?

The Omicron transmission has infected nearly 600,000 people in Shanghai from March 26 to May 31, 2022. Combined with different control measures taken by the government in different periods, a dynamic model was constructed to investigate the impact of medical resources, shelter hospitals and aerosol transmission generated by clustered nucleic acid testing on the spread of Omicron. The parameters of the model were estimated by least square method and MCMC method, and the accuracy of the model was verified by the cumulative number of asymptomatic infected persons and confirmed cases in Shanghai from March 26 to May 31, 2022.

Vegetation impact on atmospheric moisture transport under increasing land-ocean temperature contrasts.

Destabilization of the water cycle threatens human lives and livelihoods. Meanwhile our understanding of whether and how changes in vegetation cover could trigger transitions in moisture availability remains incomplete. This challenge calls for better evidence as well as for the theoretical concepts to describe it.

Application of nano remediation of mine polluted in acid mine drainage water using machine learning model.

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is the term used to describe drainage from coal mines with high sulfur-bearing rocks. The oxidative weathering of metal sulfides leads to AMD. The acidic environment corrodes more harmful compounds in the soil, which is spread throughout the working area.

[Community Structure, Function, and Influencing Factors of Planktonic Fungi in the Danjiangkou Reservoir].

Planktonic fungi are important components of aquatic ecosystems, and analyses of their community composition and function have far-reaching significance for the ecological management and maintenance of the Danjiangkou reservoir. The composition and function of the planktonic fungal community in the surface water layer of the Danjiangkou Reservoir in October 2019 was investigated using Illumina MiSeq sequencing combined with FUNGuild analyses. According to the results, the reservoir community is primarily composed of 6 phyla 213 genera, with Ascomycota and Basidiomycota being the dominant phyla.

Allosteric regulation of glutamate dehydrogenase deamination activity.

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) is a key enzyme interlinking carbon and nitrogen metabolism. Recent discoveries of the GDH specific role in breast cancer, hyperinsulinism/hyperammonemia (HI/HA) syndrome, and neurodegenerative diseases have reinvigorated interest on GDH regulation, which remains poorly understood despite extensive and long standing studies. Notwithstanding the growing evidence of the complexity of allosteric network behind GDH regulation, identifications of allosteric factors and associated mechanisms are paramount to deepen our understanding of the complex dynamics that regulate GDH enzymatic activity.

Rhizosphere Bacterial Community Structure and Predicted Functional Analysis in the Water-Level Fluctuation Zone of the Danjiangkou Reservoir in China During the Dry Period.

The water-level fluctuation zone (WLFZ) is a transitional zone between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Plant communities that are constructed artificially in the WLFZ can absorb and retain nutrients such as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). However, the microbial community composition and function associated with this process have not been elucidated.

Feedforward Control of Plant Nitrate Transporter NRT1.1 Biphasic Adaptive Activity.

Defective nitrate signaling in plants causes disorder in nitrogen metabolism, and it negatively affects nitrate transport systems, which toggle between high- and low-affinity modes in variable soil nitrate conditions. Recent discovery of a plasma membrane nitrate transceptor protein NRT1.1-a transporter cum sensor-provides a clue on this toggling mechanism.

Effects of Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria (PGPB) Inoculation on the Growth, Antioxidant Activity, Cu Uptake, and Bacterial Community Structure of Rape ( L.) Grown in Cu-Contaminated Agricultural Soil.

Previous analyses of plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) combined with the remediation of heavy metal pollution in soil have largely been performed under potting or greenhouse conditions, and remediation experiments under field conditions have rarely been reported. In this study, the effects of the metal-resistant PGPB JYC17, Y1-3-9, and J62 on soil Cu pollution under rape remediation were studied in the farmland surrounding the Nanjing Jiuhuashan copper mining region in China. Following inoculation treatment for 50 days, the biomasses of the rape inoculated with strains JYC17, Y1-3-9, and J62 increased, and the total amounts of Cu uptake increased by 113.

Evolutionary Origins of Pseudogenes and Their Association with Regulatory Sequences in Plants.

Pseudogenes (Ψs), nonfunctional relatives of functional genes, form by duplication or retrotransposition, and loss of gene function by disabling mutations. Evolutionary analysis provides clues to Ψ origins and effects on gene regulation. However, few systematic studies of plant Ψs have been conducted, hampering comparative analyses.

Adaptive Regulation of Nitrate Transceptor NRT1.1 in Fluctuating Soil Nitrate Conditions.

Plant adaptation in variable soil nitrate concentrations involves sophisticated signaling and transport systems that modulate a variety of physiological and developmental responses. However, we know very little about their molecular mechanisms. It has recently been reported that many of these responses are regulated by a transceptor NRT1.

Ploidy and hybridity effects on leaf size, cell size and related genes expression in triploids, diploids and their parents in Populus.

Cell-size enlargement plays a pivotal role in increasing the leaf size of triploid poplar, and polyploidization could change leaf shape. ABP1 was highly expressed in triploid plants and positively related to cell size. In the plant kingdom, the leaf is the most important energy production organ, and polyploidy often exhibits a "Gigas" effect on leaf size, which benefits agriculture and forestry.

Time-specific and pleiotropic quantitative trait loci coordinately modulate stem growth in Populus.

In perennial woody plants, the coordinated increase of stem height and diameter during juvenile growth improves competitiveness (i.e. access to light); however, the factors underlying variation in stem growth remain unknown in trees.

Examining the patterns and dynamics of species abundance distributions in succession of forest communities by model selection.

There are a few common species and many rare species in a biological community or a multi-species collection in given space and time. This hollow distribution curve is called species abundance distribution (SAD). Few studies have examined the patterns and dynamics of SADs during the succession of forest communities by model selection.

Organization of biogeochemical nitrogen pathways with switch-like adjustment in fluctuating soil redox conditions.

Nitrogen is cycled throughout ecosystems by a suite of biogeochemical processes. The high complexity of the nitrogen cycle resides in an intricate interplay between reversible biochemical pathways alternatively and specifically activated in response to diverse environmental cues. Despite aggressive research, how the fundamental nitrogen biochemical processes are assembled and maintained in fluctuating soil redox conditions remains elusive.

Robust regulation of hepatic pericentral amination by glutamate dehydrogenase kinetics.

Impaired glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) sensitivity to its inhibitors causes excessive insulin secretion by pancreatic beta-cells and defective ammonia metabolism in the liver. These symptoms are commonly associated with hyperinsulinism/hyperammonemia syndrome (HI/HA), which causes recurrent hypoglycaemia in early infancy. Hepatic localization of GDH amination and deamination activities linked with the urea cycle is known to be involved in ammonia metabolism and detoxification.

A general method for parameter estimation in light-response models.

Selecting appropriate initial values is critical for parameter estimation in nonlinear photosynthetic light response models. Failed convergence often occurs due to wrongly selected initial values when using currently available methods, especially the kind of local optimization. There are no reliable methods that can resolve the conundrum of selecting appropriate initial values.