Molecular characterization of heat shock protein 70 genes in the liver of three warm freshwater fishes with differential tolerance to microcystin-LR.

Heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) protect cell from oxidative stress by preventing the irreversible loss of vital proteins and facilitating their subsequent regeneration. Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix), grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus), and Nile tilapia (Oreochromis nilotica) are three warm freshwater fishes with differential tolerance to microcystin-LR (MC-LR). Full-length cDNAs encoding the HSP70 were cloned from the livers of the three fishes. The HSP70 cDNAs of silver carp, grass carp, and Nile tilapia were 2356, 2348, and 2242 bp in length and contained an open-reading frame of 1950 bp (encoding a polypeptide of 649 amino acids), 1950 bp (649 amino acids), and 1917 bp (638 amino acids), respectively. Like mammalian HSP70, the HSP70 of the three fish was also composed of an ATPase domain from residues 1 to 383 (44 kDa), substrate peptide binding domain from residues 384 to 544 (18 kDa), and a C-terminus domain from residues 545 to 649 (10 kDa). The relatively high conservation of HSP70 sequences among different vertebrates is consistent with their important role in fundamental cellular processes. Using beta-actin as an external control, RT-PCR within the exponential phase was conducted to determine the constitutive and inducible expression level of HSP70 gene among the three fishes (6-12 g) intraperitoneally injected with MC-LR (50 µg kg(-1) body weight). Both constitutive and inducible liver mRNA levels of the fish HSP70 genes showed positive relationships with their tolerance to MC-LR: highest in Nile tilapia, followed by silver carp, and lowest in grass carp. The differential expression pattern of liver HSP70 genes in the three fish indicated a potential role of HSP70 in the detoxification process of MC-LR.

[Identification of the priority conservation areas of national park: A case study of Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, China]. / å›½å®¶å ¬å›­ä¼˜å ˆä¿æŠ¤åŒºåŸŸè¯†åˆ«­­ä»¥æµ™æ±Ÿä¸½æ°´ä¸ºä¾‹.

It is the goal of protected area management to make full use of limited resources to better protect biodiversity. Currently, the main tasks of developing national park system in China are to combine conservation features, optimize the spatial network of protected areas, and identify the prio-rity conservation areas of national parks effectively. In this study, we assessed the spatial distribution of key ecosystem services (carbon sequestration, oxygen release, hydrological regulation, water resources, and soil retention) using ecological model, and simulated the distribution of suitable habitats for 37 endangered species by MaxEnt in Lishui City, Zhejiang Province. The irreplaceability index of each planning unit in Lishui was calculated on the 0.4 km×0.4 km grid using the systema-tic conservation planning model (MARXAN), setting key ecosystem services and endangered species as the conservation objects. Combined with the local management needs, the priority protection areas of national parks were identified comprehensively. The results showed that during 2005 to 2015, the annual carbon storage, oxygen release, hydrological regulation, water resource, and soil retention in the study area was 0.05 kg C·m-2·a-1, 0.13 kg O2·m-2·a-1, 83.25×108 m3·a-1, 803 mm·a-1, and 95.53 t·hm-2·a-1, respectively. The irreplaceability index of different land use types was significantly different. The irreplaceability index of forest, river and reservoir, garden, cultivated land, residential land was 50-100, 60-100, 30-50, 15-35, 0-25, respectively. The priority conservation areas accounted for 11.8% of the study area. This study put forward a systematic conservation planning idea combining biodiversity and ecosystem services, which could provide a useful framework and technical support for optimizing the network layout of protected areas and priority conservation areas of national parks, and help to enhance the overall effectiveness of the establishment of the protected areas system with national parks as its main type in China.

[Visible spectral character of heme iron in biomacromolecules].

The visible spectra of hemin, hemoglobin, cytochrome C, peroxidase and so on were compared and analyzed based on the experiments. The fifth and sixth coordinate bond of heme iron in biomacromolecule may affect their visible spectra in peak form and position. The sixth coordinate bond of ferrous heme iron that is in low-spin displays two peaks, and in high-spin, ferrous heme without the sixth coordinate bond of iron gives only one peak. That is in favor of our understanding of the character, function and stability of heme-containing biomacromolecule. The spectral character of iron coordinate bonds is due to that these coordinate bonds change the iron position related to porphyrin plane and its spin state.

Quantification of the impact of land-use changes on ecosystem services: a case study in Pingbian County, China.

Pingbian Miao Autonomous County is one of the poorest rural areas in China. Land-use changes, mainly driven by agricultural expansion and deforestation, may significantly impact ecosystem services and functions, but such effects are difficult to quantify. In the present study, Landsat image data were combined with the published coefficients about the world and China ecosystem to quantify land-use and ecosystem service changes in the mountainous area. A sensitivity analysis was employed to determine the effect of manipulating these coefficients on the estimated values. Our results show that during the past decades (from 1973 to 2004) forests and grasslands were converted into shrubland and cropland, respectively, resulting in a continuous decrease in ecosystem service (from 124.5 US$ x 10(6) in 1973 to 100.4 US$ x 10(6) in 2004). We found that the decrease of mixed forest in the study area was the largest contributor (i.e., 25.4 US$ x 10(6)) to the decline of the ecosystem service. Therefore we propose that future land-use policy should pay more attention to the crucial ecosystem functions of these forests (including tropical forest), and that it is necessary to balance the relationship between the livelihood of local farmers and environmental protection in order to maintain a healthy and stable ecosystem.