Junsheng li

Central University of Finance and Economics | CUFE · school of public finance and taxation

Background: Residential green spaces and the co-inhabiting bird communities provide critical cultural ecosystem services for urban dwellers, which is critical for citizens’ psychological well-being but has largely been overlooked, especially in China. This study attempted to delineate the relationship between human-nature interactions occurring at...

The invasion of Chromolaena odorata (L.) R.M. King and H.Rob. affects microbial community structure, but seldom do studies focus on bacterial diversity in the rhizosphere of C. odorata from different habitats. To reveal the impacts of C. odorata on bacterial communities in different habitats, diversity and functional groups of bacteria were compare...

As multiple invaders often co-occur, understanding the interactions between different invasive species is important. Previous studies have reported on invasional meltdown and neutral and interference relationships between invasive species. However, interspecific interactions may vary with environmental change owing to the different responses of int...

Body size play a key role in driving bioecological patterns by affecting community assembly processes at the organism level. However, the extent to which the relative influences of ecological processes operating community assembly with different body sizes at different habitat types in freshwater ecosystem is still unclear. Here, we conducted a com...

Cities in China support higher human population densities compared to those in western countries; consequently, the high pressure placed on cultural ecosystem services (CES) provision of residential green spaces might hinder overall human wellbeing and the maintenance of avian diversity. Thus, this study aimed to identify how to meet the main prefe...

Fish diversity, an important indicator of the health of aquatic ecosystems, is declining sharply due to water pollution, overfishing, climate change, and species invasion. For protecting fish diversity, effective surveying and monitoring are prerequisites. In this study, eDNA (environmental DNA) metabarcoding and ground cages were used to survey th...

Tamarix chinensis and Ziziphus jujuba are two dominant shrub species on Chenier Island in the Yellow River Delta, China. Water is a restrictive factor determining the plant growth, vegetation composition, and community succession in this coastal zone. We investigated how water uptake tradeoffs of the two shrub species responded to soil water fluctu...

Random forest (RF) and MaxEnt models are shallow machine learning approaches that perform well in predicting species' potential distributions. RF models can produce robust results with the default automatic configuration in most cases, but it is necessary for MaxEnt to optimize the model settings to improve the performance, and the predictive perfo...

Biological invasions have become one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. Most previous studies have revealed how successful invasive species adapt to new environments and climate change through phenotypic and genetic evolution. Some researchers suggested that understanding unsuccessful or less successful biolo...

In order to understand the spatial distribution, ecological risks, and pollution status of nutrients and heavy metals in the coastal tidal creek water of the Yellow River Delta (YRD), a total of 21 water samples were collected from 7 sample sites. The results indicated that along the coastline from northwest to southeast in the YRD, the concentrati...

The deliberate introduction of the beneficial gene in crop plants through transgenic technology can provide enormous agricultural and economic benefits. However, the impact of commercialization of these crops on the ecosystem particularly on belowground soil biodiversity is still uncertain. Here, we examined and compared the effects of a non-transg...

The concentrations, distribution, sources and ecological risk levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in tidal creek water from coastal tidal flats of the Yellow River Delta were investigated. The concentrations of 16 PAHs ranged from 0.113 to 1.533, with a mean value of 0.496 ± 0.035 μg L⁻¹, which indicated a moderate level of pollution....

Landscape metrics are widely used in landscape planning and land use management. Understanding how landscape metrics respond with scales can provide more accurate prediction information; however, ignoring the interference of multi-scale interaction may lead to a severe systemic bias. In this study, we quantitatively analyzed the scaling sensitivity...

The spatial distributions of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in surface sediments are of great significance in studying the ecological process of nutrient cycling in intertidal flats. However, little is known about N and P’s spatial distribution in intertidal flats of the Yellow River Delta (YRD). We analyzed the N and P contents in surface sedimen...

One of the core issues of ecology is to understand the effects of landscape patterns on ecological processes. For this, we need to accurately capture changes in the fine landscape structures to avoid losing information about spatial heterogeneity. The landscape pattern indicators (LPIs) can characterize the spatial structures and give some informat...

Soil microbes play an important role in pollutant remediation and nutrient cycling in urban green spaces. However, how microbial composition and diversity are affected by environmental factors is poorly understood. Here, we compared soil microbial communities in 11 urban parks, constructed at different times (10, ∼30 and >100 years ago) or existing...

The stability of ecosystems is of great significance to the supply of ecosystem services and human well-being. Frequently occurring drought events seriously threaten the stability of terrestrial ecosystems. In particular, in grasslands with low rainfall, ecosystems are more vulnerable to drought. To date, most studies have focused on forest ecosyst...

China has a rich flora of gymnosperms. Gymnosperm species dominate and co-dominate more than half of China's forest area, but many of them are threatened and vulnerable to climate changes. This study mapped the geographical distributions of 209 gymnosperm species in China, modeled the niches of 124 gymnosperm species with adequate records of field...

Given the importance of protected areas (PAs) in promoting the balance between conservation and sustainable development, it is crucial for planners and decision-makers to focus attention on the core areas that are of priority to PAs. However, few studies have addressed the balance between ecosystem service provision in PAs and regional development...

Protected areas (PAs) are considered essential for biodiversity conservation, and concerns about the effectiveness of PAs in terms of reducing deforestation are growing. However, few studies have identified the management measures that best reduce deforestation within existing PAs. Here, we carried out 10-year (from 2007 to 2016) field surveys and...

Strategies are still employed to reduce insect damage in crop production, including conventional breeding with wild germplasm resources and transgenic technology with foreign genes' insertion. Cultivated and Bt-transgenic rice (Oryza sativa) and two ecotypes of wild rice (O. rufipogon) were treated by a 72 h feeding of brown plant hopper (Nilaparva...

Plant phenological events are sensitive indicators of climate change, and their change could markedly affect the structure and function of ecosystems. Previous studies have revealed the spatiotemporal variations in the phenological events of woody plants. However, limited studies have focused on the phenophases of herbaceous plants. In this study,...

Despite the important ecological and agricultural production value of fallow field vegetation in agricultural landscapes, it is often affected by herbicide drift and runoff from neighboring sprayed fields. However, little is known about the impact of herbicides on the non-target plant community of fallow fields. In this study, the plant community o...

Background: Strategies are still employed to decrease insect damage in crop production, including conventional breeding with wild germplasm resources and transgenic technology with the insertion of foreign genes, while the insect-resistant mechanism of these strategies remains unclear. Results: Under the feeding of brown planthopper (Nilaparvata lu...

Biodiversity conservation plays an important role in the sustainable development of human society. China had made significant progress in biodiversity conservation studies and practices. This paper reviews major achievements in China in the past decades, especially those since 2010. In terms of the science behind biodiversity conservation, Chinese...

Quantifying patterns of variation and coordination of plant functional traits can help to understand the mechanisms underlying both invasiveness and adaptation of plants. Little is known about the coordinated variations of performance and functional traits of different organs in invasive plants, especially in response to their adaptation to environ...

Ambrosia artemisiifolia is native to North America but has become a worldwide invasive weed. It was introduced to China more than 80 years ago and has spread into 20 provinces since then. To assess the population structure of A. artemisiifolia in China and whether this invasion involved a single event or multiple events, we investigated patterns of...

Plant invasions greatly threaten native biodiversity and ecosystem health, and measures to effectively control and eradicate invasive plants are urgently needed. Spartina alterniflora has invaded large areas of coastal China as well as many other countries, and caused tremendous ecological and economic problems. To develop measures for effectively...

The effects of sublethal doses of herbicides on plants cannot be ignored, yet little is known about the effects of sublethal doses of herbicides on the F1 generation of plants. Seed germination and seedling growth of native and invasive plants following the sublethal exposure of parent plants to herbicides were comparatively analyzed in this study....

Background and aims: Since pollen flow or seed dispersal can contribute to transgene persistence in the environment, the sympatric presence of transgenic crops with their wild relatives is an ecological concern. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that proximate growth of a herbivore-resistant Bt crop and wild relatives coupled with the presen...

Background: As genetically modified (GM) crops have been cultivated worldwide, concerns emerge over ecological consequences because of the coexistence of transgenic and non-transgenic crops in fields. We first conducted field experiments using insect-resistant Bt-transgenic rice expressing Bacillus thuringiensis and its counterpart conventional ri...

Herbicides have long-term effects on the vegetative parts and reproduction of plants; however, the carry-over effects of herbicides on the F1 generation of invasive plants remain unclear. The objectives of this work were to investigate the germination and growth of the F1 generation of A. retroflexus, an invasion plant, treated by sublethal herbici...

Hydrogen gas (H2) plays a crucial role in plant resistance to stresses, yet whether it affects plant growth and reproduction remains unclear. To detect the effects of H2 on plant fitness, we conducted a greenhouse experiment using hydrogen-rich water (HW) to irrigate conventional rice (Oryza sativa L.), insect-resistant Bt-transgenic rice expressin...

To evaluate the population variation, individual plasticity, and local adaptability of Solidago canadensis in response to shade treatment, we conducted a common pots experiment with a total of 150 ramets (5 genets, 15 populations, and 2 treatments) subjected to both control (natural light) and shady treatment (10% of natural light). Shade treatment...

Numerous studies have implicated urbanization as a major cause of loss of biodiversity. Most of them have focused on plants and animals, even though soil microorganisms make up a large proportion of that biodiversity. However, it is unclear how the soil bacterial community is affected by urban development. Here, paired-end Illumina sequencing of th...

Background: The non-target effect of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins in aquatic ecosystems is crucial to improve the present assessment of Bt-transgenic plants, particularly where crops are cultivated near aquatic ecosystems. We conducted decomposition experiments during two growing seasons to determine the effects of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt...

China is a mega-diverse country, harboring more than 30,000 vascular plant species and about 2340 terrestrial vertebrate species, about half of which are found exclusively in China ([ 1 ][1]). The conservation of this unique flora and fauna strongly depends on China's protected areas. Currently,

The adventitious presence of transgenic plants in wild plant populations is of ecological and regulatory concern, but the consequences of adventitious presence are not well understood. Here, we introduced Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1Ac (Bt)-transgenic oilseed rape (Bt OSR, Brassica napus) with various frequencies into wild mustard (Brassica juncea)...

Evaluating the effectiveness of protecting nature assets is a vital component of responsive, pro-active management of protected areas. It is important to protect reserves of geological (including fossils) assets as a means to also protect national and natural heritage. At the end of 2013, 2669 protected areas had been established in China and 123 o...

Over the past decades, rising air temperature has been accompanied by changes in precipitation. Despite relatively robust literature on the temperature sensitivity of carbon cycle at continental to global scales, less is known about the way this sensitivity is affected by precipitation. In this study we investigate how precipitation mediates the re...

There is profound interest in knowing the degree to which China's institutions are capable of protecting its natural forests and biodiversity in the face of economic and political change. China's 2 most important forest-protection policies are its National Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and its national-level nature reserves (NNRs). The NFPP was...

Background Transgene flow through pollen and seeds leads to transgenic volunteers and feral populations in the nature, and consumer choice and economic incentives determine whether transgenic crops will be cultivated in the field. Transgenic and non-transgenic plants are likely to coexist in the field and natural habitats, but their competitive int...

The selection of certain indicators is critical to undertake ecological risk assessments of long-term oil pollution and other environmental changes. The indicators should be easily and routinely monitored, be sensitive to pollution, respond to pollution in a predictable manner, and match the spatial and temporal scales of investigations. To compare...

Orchidaceae, the orchid family, is one of the species richest families and the most endangered plant groups. Most orchids are narrowly distributed in specific habitats because of their mycorrhizal specificity, pollinator specialization and limited seed germination rate; compared to plants from other families, orchids are extremely susceptible to ha...

The recent Chinese government approval of transgenic phytase maize for field experimentation is vital for its development of biotech maize for improved maize production. Phytase maize can potentially improve the efficiency of feed utilization by livestock and reduce environmental pollution from animal manure. Plant growth, phytochemistry, and econo...

In future decades, food demand for an increased population with elevated standards of living poses a huge challenge, particularly in the sense of the environmental impacts of agricultural systems. We have analyzed agricultural data from the past 50 years, and found that the current agricultural practices will have negative effects on global food pr...

Priority Areas of Biodiversity Conservation (PABCs) are the key areas for future biodiversity conservation in China. In this study, we used 5 dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to simulate the ecosystem function changes under future climate change scenario in the 32 terrestrial PABCs. We selected vegetation coverage, vegetation productivity,...

There is profound interest in knowing the degree to which China’s institutions are capable of protecting its natural forests and biodiversity in the face of economic and political change. China’s 2 most important forest-protection policies are its National Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and its national-level nature reserves (NNRs). The NFPP was...

Three-North Shelterbelt Forest (TSF) program, is one of six key forestry programs and has a 73-year construction period, from 1978 to 2050. Quantitative analysis of the carbon sequestration of shrubs in this region is important for understanding the overall function of carbon sequestration of the forest and other terrestrial ecosystems in China. Th...