Ai-ping Wu

• PHD
• Research Director at Hunan Agricultural University

Kudzu (Pueraria lobata) is an aggressive invasive species and has brought great loss world-widely. Though it is originated in China, it has not been considered as a weed in China. While more and more articles report its destructive effects on the native community throughout the whole country. We conducted an experiment to validate whether kudzu cou...

The aquatic environment in lake ecosystems is greatly affected by human activities and global climate change, while studies on the cascading effects on water environments using a holistic approach are scarce. We employed generalized least squares (GLS) modeling to assess the annual trends in water quality of Lake Poyang from 1983to 2018 and found t...

Cadmium (Cd) toxicity is a universal environmental threat to plant growth. Either arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) or biochar have been shown to effectively mitigate Cd toxicity in plants. Additionally, the camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora) has been used for phytoremediation of Cd-contaminated soils. However, the potential interacting effects of...

Phytoplankton communities are crucial components of aquatic ecosystems, and since they are highly interactive, they always form complex networks. Yet, our understanding of how interactive phytoplankton networks vary through time under changing environmental conditions is limited. Using a 29-year (339 months) long-term dataset on Lake Taihu, China,...

The impact of global warming on plant abundance has been widely discussed, but it remains unclear how warming affects plant physiological traits, and how these traits contribute to the abundance of aquatic plants. We explored the adjustments in physiological traits of two common aquatic plant species (Potamogeton crispus L. an Elodea canadensis Mic...

The impact of global warming on plant abundance has been widely discussed, but it remains unclear how warming affects plant physiological traits, and how these traits contribute to the abundance of aquatic plants. We explored the adjustments in physiological traits of two common aquatic plant species (Potamogeton crispus L. an Elodea canadensis Mic...

Water pollution, especially as manifested in black-odorous water bodies (BOWB), poses a significant environmental challenge. However, the impact of BOWB on the physiological ecology of Vallisneria natans (V. natans) and its attached biofilm microbial communities remains to be explored. This study investigates the capacity of V. natans in ameliora...

Cadmium (Cd) contamination is a widespread environmental issue. There is a lack of knowledge about the impacts of applying arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and biochar, either alone or in their combination, on alleviating Cd phytotoxicity in Ligustrum lucidum. Therefore, a pot experiment was conducted in a greenhouse, where L. lucidum seedlings w...

Understanding how phytoplankton interacts with local and regional drivers as well as their feedbacks is a great challenge, and quantitative analyses of the regulating role of human activities and climate changes on these feedback loops are also limited. By using monthly monitoring dataset (2000–2017) from Lake Taihu and empirical dynamic modelling...

Salt spray is a natural disturbance in coastal area of Southern China. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi can mediate the detrimental effects of salt spray. Leaf thickness and photosynthetic ability are key parameters. Combined fungi may be beneficial for trees grown in coastal areas. Salt spray is a natural disturbance in coastal region. Arbuscular myco...

Salt spray is a major environmental issue in coastal areas. Cinnamomum camphora is an economically important tree species that grows in the coastal areas of southern China. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can alleviate the detrimental effects of abiotic stress on host plants. However, the mechanism by which AMF mitigates the adverse effects of s...

Eutrophication and exotic species invasion are key drivers of the global loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions in lakes. We selected two exotic plants (Alternanthera philoxeroides and Myriophyllum aquaticum) and two native plants (Myriophyllum spicatum and Vallisneria spinulosa) to elucidate the effect of eutrophication on exotic plant invas...

Biological communities exhibit multiple distribution patterns at metacommunity scale and assessing the major drivers of these patterns is a key issue in community ecology. Here we aimed to investigate how the environmental and geographic gradients shape the distribution patterns of macrophytes at metacommunity level. We applied the framework of the...

Water level rise is considered an environmental filter for the growth and reproduction of aquatic plants in lakes. Some emergent macrophytes can form floating mats, enabling them to escape from the negative effects of deep water. However, an understanding of which species can be uprooted and form floating mats easily and what factors affect these t...

Allelopathy has been considered a good explanation for the successful invasion of some invasive plants. However, the real latitudinal and longitudinal allelopathic effects on native species have rarely been documented since many exotics have spread widely. We conducted a Petri dish experiment to determine the latitudinal and longitudinal allelopath...

Plant invasive success is attributed to invaders’ ecological advantages over their native neighbors. However, increasing evidence suggests that these advantages are expected to attenuate over time because of natural enemy accumulation, ecological evolution of native species and autotoxicity. We determined how an invasive Ageratina adenophora could...

Mulberry is an economically important crop for sericulture in China. Mulberry plantations are shifting inland, where they face high salinity. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) reportedly enhance mulberry's tolerance to salinity. Here, we assessed if additional adaptive advantages against salinity are provided by sex differences beyond those provid...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are taken as bioameliorators to alleviate the detrimental effects of salt stress. However, how AMF affect the performance of Cinnamomum camphora, an economically important species, remains unclear. In this study, we evaluated the interactive effects of AMF and salinity on the growth, nutrient acquisition, and ion...

Biological communities exhibit multiple distribution patterns at metacommunity scale and assessing the major drivers of these patterns is a key issue in community ecology. Here we aimed to investigate how the environmental and geographic gradients shape the distribution patterns of macrophytes at metacommunity level.We applied the framework of the...

Context Submerged macrophytes develop great phenotypic plasticity responding to light stress. However, the light effects on carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) stoichiometry of submerged macrophytes are unknown. Aims To determine the stoichiometric response of Myriophyllum spicatum and Vallisneria natans to a light gradient. Methods We de...

Lespedeza formosa is an economically important shrub in the agroecosystems of southern China, where acid rain (AR) is an increasingly serious environmental issue. However, the roles of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in adapting the plants to AR stress are poorly understood. In this study, L. formosa seedlings were cultivated in a greenhouse, wh...

Aims acid rain (AR), which occurs frequently in southern China, negatively affects the growth of subtropical tree species. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) mitigate the detrimental effects induced by AR. However, the mechanism by which AMF protects Zelkova serrata, an economically important tree species in southern China, from AR stress remains u...

The negative effects, caused by high light, on algae, terrestrial and marine aquatic plants are well documented, those negative effects on freshwater submerged plants are, however, not well known. We determined the negative effects of two common submerged species, Myriophyllum spicatum and Vallisneria natans, on their growth and reproduction in a s...

Background The effects of biodiversity on community function and services are frequently studied in the history of ecology, while the response of individual species to biodiversity remains great elusive. In this study, we determined the biodiversity effects on community productivity as well as species level plant mass and carbon (C) and nitrogen (N...

Acid rain (AR) is a frequent environmental issue in southern China that causes damage to the growth and photosystems of subtropical tree species. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can improve plant tolerance to acidic conditions; however, how AMF mediate the detrimental effects of AR on the growth and photosynthetic parameters of tree species is y...

Human activities and climate change are two major stressors affecting lake ecosystems as well as phytoplankton communities worldwide. However, how the temporal dynamics of phytoplankton are directly or indirectly linked to anthropogenic activities and climatic oscillation remains unclear. We assessed the annual trends (1988-2018) in phytoplankton a...

Acid rain (AR) is an increasingly serious environmental problem that frequently occurs in Southern China with sulfuric acid rain (SAR) as the main type. SAR can negatively affect the growth and physiological properties of trees, but mycorrhizal associations may mitigate such detrimental effects. However, the mechanisms by which arbuscular mycorrhiz...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are often considered bioameliorators. AMF can promote plant growth under various stressful conditions; however, differences between male and female clones in mycorrhizal strategies that protect plants from the detrimental effects of salinity are not well studied. In this study, we aimed to examine the interactive...

The relationship between diversity and productivity (DPR) is a hot topic in ecology, whereas most evidence comes from studies of manipulated terrestrial ecosystems or from two-dimensional space views. In this study, we determined DPR of submerged plants in a natural mesotrophic lake, Lake Erhai, along its water depth in 2013 and 2019. Our results d...

Disentangling the contributions of environmental gradients and spatial distance as species distribution drivers is a crucial topic of community ecology. Here, we sampled wetland plant communities at 779 plots from 52 sites and measured 12 key functional traits of 52 plant species in Poyang Lake, China. Using the generalized dissimilarity model (GDM...

Electric fields (EFs) are widely used in human activities, and all organisms are potentially affected by EFs. The effects of an EF on terrestrial plants, seeds and water animals are well documented, whereas the effects of an EF on aquatic macrophytes remain unknown. We wanted to determine the effects of an EF, generated by backpack electrofishing e...

Salt stress has become a major threat to plant growth. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are considered as bioameliorators and can modulate plant growth in various ways. However, few studies have addressed whether AMF could mediate the detrimental effects of salinity on Ligustrum vicaryi plants. In this study, inoculated (colonization with two AMF...

Trait-based approaches have been used to explore ecosystem level consequences of local changes in biodiversity along environmental gradients. Using a novel response–effect trait framework, we seek to identify and explain the mechanisms governing the cascading effects of environment on plant traits and ecosystem multi-functioning in the large Poyang...

Exotic plants can compete well with native species because many invasive species are considered better nutrient users in both low‐ and high‐resource environments. However, whether invasive plants can outperform native plants at all stages of invasion is not very clear. We investigated the nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and N:P homeostasis of an invas...

The roles that adventitious roots play in flooding tolerance have been well-studied in willows, while which of the maximum height of adventitious roots and the abundance of adventitious roots in willows is more important for their flooding tolerance is not well known. In this study, we analyzed the effects of adventitious roots on the flooding tole...

In weed management, using native parasites to control exotic weeds is considered a better alternative than classical biological control. But the risk must be assessed because of the potential damage caused by these agents. We conducted this project to investigate the mechanism driving the choice of a native obligate parasite, Cuscuta australis, bet...

Soil salinity is a common and serious environmental problem worldwide. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are considered as bio-ameliorators of soil salinity tolerance in plants. However, few studies have addressed the possible benefits of AMF inoculation for medicinal plants under saline conditions. In this study, we examined the effects of coloni...

The relationship between diversity and productivity of plant community under plant invasion has been not well known up to now. Here, we investigated the relationship between diversity and productivity under plant invasion and studied the response of species level plant mass to species richness in native and invaded communities. A field experiment f...

Macrophytes show a zonal distribution along the lake littoral zone because of their specific preferred water depths while the optimum growth water depths of dominant submersed macrophytes in natural lakes are not well known. We studied the seasonal biomass and frequency patterns of dominant and companion submersed macrophytes along the water depth...

The regression coefficients and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals of the second-degree polynomial regressions between species richness and community biomass and the water depth of the three dominant submersed macrophytes in the polydominant and monodominant communities. (DOCX)

Recorded submersed species in the polydominant and monodominant communities (Symbol ‘‘+” and ‘‘-” indicates presence or absence, respectively). (DOCX)

The study aimed to investigate the effects of colonization with two arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, Funneliformis mosseae , Diversispora versiformis , alone and in combination on the growth and nutrient acquisition of NaCl-stressed Chrysanthemum morifolium (Hangbaiju) plants in the greenhouse experiment. Mycorrhizal and non-mycorrhizal Hangbaiju...

：测定了薇甘菊提取液对鬼针草种子萌发和幼苗生长的化感影响。结果表明，薇甘菊提取液处理，非入侵 地鬼针草种子萌发率为52％，入侵地鬼针草种子萌发率为60％，薇甘菊对非入侵地鬼针草种子萌发的化感影响大 于对入侵地鬼针草种子萌发的化感影响；薇甘菊对鬼针草幼苗总叶面积、最大量子产额和冠重没有明显的抑制作 用；非入侵地处理与对照鬼针草幼苗的根重分别为23．50 g和36．92 g，入侵地处理与对照鬼针草幼苗的根重分别 为22．19 g和16．53 g，薇甘菊对非入侵地鬼针草幼苗的根重的影响大于对入侵地的；入侵地鬼针草种子及幼苗对 薇甘菊具有一定的化感抗性。

To screen allelochemical-resistant species of the alien invasive weed Mikania micrantha, we studied the allelopathic inhibition effects of the leaf aqueous extract (LAE) of Mikania on seed germination and seedling growth of the 26 species native or naturalized in the invaded region in South China. Seed germination was more strongly negatively affec...

Emergent aquatic plants are the most important plants in riparian areas. Effects of water level on biomass, density, leaf number and plant height of Zizania caducifiora were investigated in Erhai lakeshore in March and June, 2010. The results showed that plant density, biomass and plant leaf number of Z. caducifiora increased first and then decreas...

Microsatellites were identified and characterised for a worldwide invasive weed, Ageratina adenophora, based on the Illumina sequencing technology. Using the assembled genomic sequences obtained from the Illu-mina GAII sequencing platform, a total of 3012 microsatellites were identified, of which mono-, di-, tri-, tetra-, penta-, and hexa-nucleotid...

We studied the allelopathic effects of Mikania micrantha on seed vigour, seed germination and seedling growth of three receptor species (Robinia pseudoacacia L., Lolium perenne L. and Lagerstroemia indica L) under different exposure times. The target species were selected from the Mikania-'mvaded ecosystem in South China. The inhibitory effects on...

A limnological study was carried out to determine the responses of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities and soluble protein (SP) contents of 11 common aquatic plants to eutrophication stress. Field investigation in 12 lakes in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River was carried out from March to September 2004. Our results indicated that...

This study evaluates the relative contributions of leaves and roots to the belowground allelopathic effects of Mikania micrantha. The hypothesis that leaves contribute more to the allelopathic effect than roots was experimentally tested. We assessed the allelopathic effects of aqueous extracts from Mikania leaves and roots on the seed germination a...

In order to examine how carbon and nitrogen status of a macrophyte may affect its total phenolics (TP) production, the contents of free amino acids (FAA), soluble carbohydrate (SC) and TP were examined in leaves of seven submersed, four floating-leaved, and four emergent macrophytes. The floating-leaved and emergent macrophytes had much higher cont...

A comparative limnological study was carried out to present a snapshot of crustacean zooplankton communities and their relations to environmental factors to test whether there is a consistent relationship between crustacean biomass and trophic indicators among lake groups with similar trophic conditions. The study lakes showed a wide range of troph...

Experimental and field studies were conducted to evaluate the effects of NH4⁺ enrichment on growth and distribution of the submersed macrophyte, Vallisneria natans L, in lakes of the Yangtze River in China, based on the balance between free amino acids (FAA) and soluble carbohydrates (SC) in the plant tissue. Increase of NH4⁺ rather than NO3– conce...

A comparative limnological study was carried out to present a snapshot of crustacean zooplankton communities and their relations to environmental factors to test whether there is a consistent relationship between crustacean biomass and trophic indicators among lake groups with similar trophic conditions. The study lakes showed a wide range of troph...

Successions of lake ecosystems from clear-water, macrophyte-rich conditions into turbid states with abundant phytoplankton have taken place in many shallow lakes in China. However, little is know about the change of carbon fluxes in lakes during such processes. We conducted a case study in Lake Biandantang to investigate the change of carbon fluxes...

：水生植物组织内氮和磷(N和P)含量受到水体营养状况和植物生长状况影响。对长江中游江汉湖群不同营 养水平湖泊中大型水生植物的N和P含量3个季度的研究表明，在不同生活型水生植物中，沉水植物主要分布在 中营养到中一富营养湖泊中，在富营养湖泊均无分布，浮叶和挺水植物在不同营养类型湖泊的沿岸带均有分布。N 和P含量以沉水植物最高，浮叶植物次之，挺水植物最低。水生植物的N和P含量都达到或超过生长所需最低N 和P阈值，代表性浮叶植物和沉水植物的N和P含量随着湖泊营养水平提高呈现规律性变化。湖泊5种常见的水 生植物N和P含量与水柱中不同种类N和P浓度具有季节性相关：菱(Trapa bispinosa Roxb．)春夏季P含量都与TP (总磷)和TDP(总溶解磷)明显相关，春季N含量与NH 一N(氨氮)明显...