Evaluation of typical ecosystem services in Dabie Mountain area and its application in improving residents' well-being.

Research on ecosystem services and residents' well-being in old revolutionary base areas is an important task for China's ecological civilization construction and rural revitalization. Taking Jinzhai County, the core area of Dabie Mountains, China, as an example, based on InVEST model, the methods of spatial autocorrelation and coupling coordinated development degree, the spatiotemporal evolution, spatial heterogeneity and coupling association patterns of ecosystem services and multidimensional well-being in the study area from 2005 to 2020 were discussed. The major results are: In the past 15 years, in the core area of the Dabie Mountains, ecosystem services such as food supply, soil retention and water yield showed an upward trend, carbon sequestration and biodiversity maintenance showed a downward trend. The comprehensive index of multidimensional well-being in the core area of Dabie Mountain increased by 27.23% and the spatial difference in multidimensional well-being is gradually narrowing. By the analysis of coupling coordination, the number of units with the type of coupling disharmony between ecosystem services and multidimensional well-being in the study area decreased significantly from 56.85% in 2005 to 26.81% in 2020, respectively. The analysis of geographical detection showed that the habitat quality factor was the dominant controlling factor of coupling coordination spatial difference. By bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis, in the past 15 years, the number of units with the "high ecology-high well-being" synergy type increased from 5.44% to 13.31%. The results can provide a reference for accurate identification, optimal regulation and synergistic improvement between ecosystem services and relative poverty in the Dabie Mountain area.

Response of soil microbial community to plant composition changes in broad-leaved forests of the karst area in Mid-Subtropical China.

The rapid growth and expansion ofCryptomeria japonica (Thunb. ex L. f.) D. Don in karst area strongly affects plant composition of native deciduous broad-leaved forest, which seriously threat ecosystem function and service. Given the importance of soil microorganisms in regulating nutrients cycling and plant species coexistence, understanding soil microbial attributes and their relationships with soil and vegetation features in forests harboring different C. japonica abundance will help understanding the drivers of ecosystem function changes. Here we examined the diversity and composition of soil bacterial and fungal communities and their correlations with plant diversity as well as soil physicochemical properties in karst broad-leaved forests with different relative abundances of C. japonica (i.e., a high, moderate, low and no proportion level with a stem density of 1,487, 538, 156 and 0 plant/hm2, respectively) in Mid-Subtropical China. We found that soil pH decreased while soil water content (SWC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and total potassium (TK) tended to increase with the increase in C. japonica abundance. In contrast, soil available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP) and available potassium (AK) content declined by 26.1%∼49.3% under the high level of C. japonica abundance. A gradual decrease in relative abundance of Acidobacteria and Chloroflexi while a pronounced increase in relative abundance of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota were observed with increase of C. japonica abundance. Alternations in bacterial composition were closely related to changes in AP and AK, while the change of fungal structure was mainly related to SWC, soil organic carbon (SOC) and pH, indicating that bacterial community was sensitive to declines in soil available nutrients and fungal structure was sensitive to changes in soil physicochemical properties (i.e., pH and SWC) and organic carbon resource. Understory plants had the highest α-diversity in forest containing moderate abundance of C. japonica, which might be related to the high bacterial diversity. Our findings suggest conservation of soil bacterial and fungal taxa that are responsible for nutrients availability and carbon sequestration is of great significance for improving the resistance of natural deciduous broad-leaved forests to the rapid spread of C. japonica in karst areas. Moreover, Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Ascomycota and Basidiomycota are potential indicators for soil properties changes, which should be taken into consideration in karst forest managements.

High-resolution melting analysis is a more effective approach for screening TSC genes mutations.

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant disorder with a prevalence of 1 in 95,136 in Taiwan. TSC is characterized by hamartomatous lesions in multiple organ systems. Genetic defects in TSC1 and TSC2 genes are the main causes of TSC. A molecular screening protocol using denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (dHPLC) followed by DNA sequencing is currently performed to locate the genetic lesions in many clinical laboratories. The current screening approach is time consuming and inefficient. In this study, we analyzed all coding exons of TSC1 and TSC2 genes of 30 TSC patients and 47 unaffected family members using the traditional dHPLC protocol and our recently developed diagnostic platform based on high-resolution melting analysis (HRM) followed by bidirectional DNA sequencing. Data indicated that 20 mutations, including 5 mutations in TSC1 (2 sporadic, 1 familial mutation, and 2 of uncertain origin) and 15 mutations in TSC2 (14 sporadic and 1 familial mutation), 8 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs, including 3 SNPs found in irrelevant individuals without TSC phenotypes studied in the control group), and 3 variants with undetermined significance were identified, including 4 novel mutations. The sensitivities of HRM and dHPLC for TSC mutation screening were estimated as 95% and 75%, respectively. The specificities of HRM and dHPLC for TSC mutation screening were evaluated as 91% and 98%. In addition, results suggested our novel HRM screening protocol to be more economical. In conclusion, we successfully developed a superior approach for TSC genes mutation screening for clinical application.