Halophytic succulence is a driver of the leaf non-structural carbohydrate contents in plants in the arid and hyper-arid deserts of northwestern China.

Background And Aims: Non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), primarily sugars and starch, play a crucial role in plant metabolic processes and a plant's ability to tolerate and recover from drought stress. Despite their importance, our understanding of NSC characteristics in the leaves of plants that thrive in hyper-arid and saline environments remains limited.

Methods: To investigate the variations in leaf NSC across different species and spatial scales, and to explore their possible causes, we collected 488 leaf samples from 49 native plant species at 115 sites in the desert area of northwestern China.

Desertification indirectly affects soil fauna by reducing complexity of soil habitats and diversity of energy sources.

Soil fauna is closely linked to ecological functions such as biogeochemical cycling, soil structure, ecosystem sustainability and trophic interactions. However, little consideration has been given to how desertification influences the abundance and diversity of soil fauna in arid areas. In this study, soil fauna was sampled in four desert habitats (gravel, sand, salt and mud desert) in northwest China.

Monascus Pigment Rubropunctatin: A Potential Dual Agent for Cancer Chemotherapy and Phototherapy.

The Monascus pigment, rubropunctatin, was extracted and purified from red mold rice (RMR), and its cytotoxic activities against human cervical carcinoma HeLa cells were studied under the conditions with or without light irradiation. The IC50 value of rubropunctatin against HeLa cells in the dark was 93.71 ± 1.