RESEARCH NEWS

• Soil Organisms Serve as Both Drivers of Soil Carbon Cycling and Sources of Soil Organic Carbon

  Two research teams of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Soil Ecology Research Team and the Ecosystem Microbiology Research Team, recently conducted an indoor microcosm experiment. The leading researchers Dr. KOU Xinchang, Dr. ZHANG Xiaoke and Dr. LI Qi, together with their colleagues, used carbon-stable isotope tracing technique to study the biological transformation pathways of exogenous organic carbon and the energy flow process within the soil food web to elucidate the roles of soil food webs on soil carbon capture, or carbon sequestration.

  May 11, 2023
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  Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction Potential for Multi-Source and Multi- Approach Biomass Energy Conversion

  A joint research team consisting by Professor XI Fengming group from Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Professor FU Jingying group from Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of CAS, and Professor WANG Feng group from Dalian Institute of Chemistry and Physics of CAS constructed a comprehensive bioenergy accounting model with a multi-dimensional analysis that combines spatial analysis, life-cycle analysis, and multi-path analysis. Adopting the accounting model, they assessed the China’s bioenergy production and carbon emission reduction potentials.

  Apr 28, 2023
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  The Build-up of Soil Organic Carbon Pool in Conservation Agriculture is Determined by the Complementation between Microbial- and Plant-derived Components

  LI Yi, a doctoral candidate of the Soil and Environmental Biochemistry Team of the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, recently completed a research quantifying the dynamic changes of amino sugars and lignin phenols in soil over 12 years of no-tillage and straw mulching at the National Farmland Ecosystem Observation Research Station in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. The contribution mechanism of microbial-derived and plant-derived components to SOC sequestration and stabilization under conservation tillage was investigated, laying the foundation for enhancing soil organic matter and comprehensive management of Northeast farmland.

  Apr 18, 2023
• Quantitative Analysis of the Link between Forest Structure and Albedo in the Temperate Secondary Forest Ecosystem

  Li Shuangtian, a doctoral candidate of the Qingyuan Ker Towers Research Team of the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, recently completed a study. They continuously observed forest albedos and FAPAR, as well as seasonal changes in canopy and understory in the temperate forests using Qingyuan Ker Towers (three flux towers in a watershed; natural mixed broadleaved forest, T1-MBF; natural Mongolian oak forest, T2-MOF; larch plantation forest, T3-LPF), and demonstrated a comprehensive analysis.

  Apr 07, 2023
• Climate Extremes and Forest Age Mediate Drought-induced Forest Mortality in Northeast China

  MA Tianxiao, Associate Researcher of the Landscape Process Research Team of the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, recently completed a research quantifying drought-induced mortality rates of Northeast China's forests at tree species and regional scales through statistical fitting the relationship between Rainfall Use Efficiency (RUE) and precipitation, the relationship between drought-induced forest mortality and forest age, and the relationship between RUE and drought index (more specifically, the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI) in Northeast China.

  Apr 06, 2023
• Bud Banks Confer the Rapid Grassland Recover Following Extreme Drought

  To address this knowledge gap, a research team from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a four years extreme drought followed by three years recovery and explored the impact of the effects of drought and recovery on aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) in a grassland of northern China. Surprisingly, the researchers found that ANPP in the drought-plots recovered to the level of control-plots within a year after extreme drought.

  Mar 29, 2023
• Changes in Dominance of Plant Species with High Stoichiometric Plasticity Exacerbate Community Nitrogen–Phosphorus Imbalance

  The researchers found that nitrogen addition led to a significant increase in N:P ratio of the plant community as a whole, and the community nitrogen and phosphorus imbalance could be attributed to the variation in plant species composition.

  Mar 28, 2023
• Scientists Reveal Importance of Acetobacterium in Anaerobic Biohydrogenation of 1,3-Butadiene to 1-Butene

  Research Scientists YANG Yi and YAN Jun of the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences recently established a BD anaerobic biotransformation microcosm using river sediment as the inoculation source.

  Mar 01, 2023
• Researchers Isolate Two New Organohalide-respiring Sulfurospirillum StrainsResearchers Isolate Two New Organohalide-respiring Sulfurospirillum Strains

  Sulfurospirillum, widely distributed in natural environments, is a class of anaerobic microbes with the ability to reduce sulfur and sulfur oxides. Some species of the genus can make use of tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene, the organochlorine pollutants which are common in the global subsurface environment, as electron acceptors. This metabolic mode has also been called organohalide respiration.

  Mar 01, 2023
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  New mycorrhizal dominance mechanism drives the scale-dependent biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships

  In a recent study published in Ecological Monographs, researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators propose a mycorrhizal dominance mechanism to address the scale-dependence issue in BEF studies (Figure 1). They predicted that the scale-dependent relationships between plant diversity and biomass carbon content observed in natural forests were mostly driven by the distribution patterns of arbuscular- (AM) and ecto-mycorrhizal (EM) tree species, together with soil heterogeneity (Figure 1).

  Mar 01, 2023