Increasing and fluctuating resource availability enhances invasional meltdown.

Exotic plant invaders can promote others via direct or indirect facilitation, known as "invasional meltdown." Increased soil nutrients can also promote invaders by increasing their competitive impacts, but how this might affect meltdown is unknown. In a mesocosm experiment, we evaluated how eight exotic plant species and eight Eurasian native species responded individually to increasing densities of the invasive plant Conyza canadensis, while varying the supply and fluctuations of nutrients.

High-Performance Spectrally Selective Absorber Using the ZrB-Based All-Ceramic Coatings.

Enhancing the spectral selectivity and thermal stability of the absorber used in the concentrated solar power system would boom the conversion efficiency of solar energy to electricity. The ceramic coatings possess excellent thermal stability in optical films. Here, we design the ZrB-based all-ceramic spectrally selective absorber with a quasioptical microcavity (QOM) structure, which shows an excellent performance with a solar absorptance of 0.

Co-seismic landslide topographic analysis based on multi-temporal DEM-A case study of the Wenchuan earthquake.

Hillslope instability has been thought to be one of the most important factors for landslide susceptibility. In this study, we apply geomorphic analysis using multi-temporal DEM data and shake intensity analysis to evaluate the topographic characteristics of the landslide areas. There are many geomorphologic analysis methods such as roughness, slope aspect, which are also as useful as slope analysis.