Paleoenvironmental changes in the coastal zone of the northwest South China Sea during the last 13 kyr.

Marine sediments in coastal zones serve as valuable archives for understanding the history of silicate chemical weathering and summer monsoon rainfall in source areas, providing insights into terrigenous climate and environmental evolution. In this study, we investigated the grain size, clay minerals, and geochemistry of sediments retrieved from core KZK01 in the coastal zone of the northwest South China Sea during the past 13 thousand years before present (kyr BP). Our findings demonstrated that the illite crystallinity index served as a reliable proxy for assessing the intensity of chemical weathering in the source area.

Resource availability and parasitism intensity influence the response of soybean to the parasitic plant .

Introduction: Parasitic plants can damage crop plants and consequently cause yield losses and thus threaten food security. Resource availability (e.g.

Effects of microtopographic patterns on plant growth and soil improvement in coastal wetlands of the Yellow River Delta.

Introduction: To clarify the effects of microtopography on plant growth and soil water, salt and nutrient characteristics of saline soils in mudflats within muddy coastal zones and explore suitable microtopographic modifications.

Methods: Six microtopographic modification patterns, namely, S-shaped, stripe-shaped, pin-shaped, stepshaped, dense stripe-shaped and crescent-shaped patterns, were established in the coastal mudflats of the Yellow River Delta. The soil water, salt, ion, total carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus contents and their ecological stoichiometric characteristics were measured and analyzed after theimplementation of different microtopographic modification patterns, with bare mudflats as the control.

Response of the fine root morphological and chemical traits of to water and salt changes in coastal wetlands of the Yellow River Delta.

To explore the adaptation of the fine root morphology and chemical characteristics of to water-salt heterogeneity in the groundwater-soil system of a coastal wetland zone, forests at different groundwater levels (high: GW1 0.54 m and GW2 0.83 m; medium: GW3 1.

Root growth and architecture of Tamarix chinensis in response to the groundwater level in the Yellow River Delta.

Aims: Investigate the growth adaptation law of the Tamarix chinensis root system in response to the groundwater level in a muddy coastal zone.

Methods: The high groundwater level (0.7-0.

Parasitism induces negative effects of physiological integration in a clonal plant.

Clonal integration often increases fitness of clonal plants, but it may decrease it when some but not all connected plants (ramets) within a clone are parasitized. This hypothesis was synthesized in a conceptual model and tested by growing pairs of connected ramets of two congeneric clonal plants, Sphagneticola trilobata and Sphagneticola calendulacea, with and without parasitizing one ramet with Cuscuta australis and with and without severing the connection (allowing or preventing integration). Consistent with the model, integration in S.

The invasive plant Solidago canadensis exhibits partial local adaptation to low salinity at germination but not at later life-history stages.

Premise: Evolutionary adaptation may enable plants to inhabit a broad range of environments. However, germination and early life-history stages have seldom been considered in estimates of evolutionary adaptation. Moreover, whether soil microbial communities can influence evolutionary adaptation in plants remains little explored.