We evaluated the seasonal change in functional groups of marine macrobenthos in relation to environmental factors in the Ximen Island National Marine Special Reserve, Zhejiang Province, in April and November of 2010, August 2011 and February 2012. We identified a total of 78 taxa (mostly to species level) and categorized these taxa by feeding strategy. Overall, we categorized these taxa into following five functional groups: planktophagous(Pl), phytophagous(Ph), carnivorous(C), omnivorous(O), and detritivorous(D). The mean density of each functional group was ranked as Pl>C>Ph>D>O, and the mean biomass as Pl>D>C>O>Ph. Based on the results of variance analysis (one-way ANOVA), we found no significant seasonal differences of density and biomass among functional groups. We used canonical correspondence analysis to examine relationships between environmental factors and macrobenthic functional groups. Our results imply that temperature, dissolved oxygen, dissolved inorganic phosphorus and median particle diameter were the main environmental factors correlated with macrobenthic functional groups. Results of the cumulative percentage variance in functional groups-environment relationships indicated that the changes of functional groups can be explained best by the environmental factors.

We completed a quantitative investigation of the macrobenthic community in the intertidal zone and offshore areas of Zhangzi Island in November 2011 to identify the distribution and potential anthropogenic impacts on this aquatic community. Four biodiversity indices, Bray-Curtis similarity, MDS ordination analyses, and ABC curves were used in the present work to analyze the community structure. We identified 39 total macrobenthic species in the intertidal zone of Maya Beach, of which the most dominant groups were the Polychaeta, followed by Crustacea, and Mollusca. We found four dominant species belonging to Polychaeta, including Capitella capitata, Lycastopsis augenari, Naineris laevigata, and Lumbrineris latreilli. Average biomass of the intertidal zone was 25.76 ± 41.08 g/m², of which Mollusca contributed most. Average density was 315.11 ± 160.73 ind./m², of which the Polychaeta contributed most. The average value of three biodiversity indices were relatively low (Richness index 1.17 ± 0.89, Evenness index 0.74 ± 0.17 and Shannon-Wiener index 1.80 ± 1.09). We identified 40 species in the offshore areas, of which the most dominant group was Polychaeta, followed by Crustacea, Mollusca and Echinodermata. We also identified five dominant species in offshore areas, including Ophiopholis mirabilis, Amphioplus japonicus, Lumbrineris latreilli, Echinocardium cordatum, and Ophiura sarsiivadicola. The average value of biomass and density was higher in the offshore areas compared to that of intertidal zone, with 218.86 ± 152.24 g/m² and 700.00 ± 471.51 ind./m², respectively. The average value of Richness index was 1.40 ± 0.60, Evenness index 0.64 ± 0.19 , and Shannon-Wiener index 2.04 ± 0.78. MDS ordination analysis showed that community structure was significantly different within the intertidal zone and the offshore areas. Lastly, the macrobenthos fauna in intertidal zone were impacted by a moderate anthropogenic disturbance, whereas the fauna in offshore areas was slightly disturbed.

The historical development of dinoflagellate taxonomy in China and the world are reviewed, and the taxonomic status of some dinoflagellate groups in Chinese coastal seas are emended. It has been more than 200 years since the discovery of dinoflagellates, but following intensive study, increasing confusion and controversy in dinofalgellate taxonomy has become apparent. In this paper, a broad overview of the history of dinoflagellate taxonomy is presented, highlighting some major developments. Differences exist between the international and Chinese taxonomy system. When comparing the internationally accepted system (based on the information provided by the website algaeBASE) with that used in China (based on the monograph Checklist of Marine Biota of China Seas), we found that they were very similar at the order level, but some differences existed at the family and genus levels. According to morphological and some physiological characteristics, a more reasonable taxonomy is presented. The main emendations are: (1) the three genera named Karenia, Karlodinium and Takayama, are separated from the family Gymnodiniaceae and classified as a new family Kareniaceae; (2) most species in the genus Ceratium are placed in Neoceratium; (3) the genus Alexandrium is separated from family Goniodomataceae, and placed in the family Gonyaulacaceae; (4) the family Heteraulacaceae is replaced by the family Goniodomataceae; and (5) two new orders, Oxyrrhinales and Pyrocystales, are established.

Marine bacteria are an extremely important component of marine bioresources. We studied the community structure and diversity of cultured and uncultured bacteria in surface layer sediment sampled from the East China Sea (122°10′41″ E, 29°49′7″ N) by buried piece observation, fluorescence enumeration, pure culture techniques and 16S rDNA clone library analysis. The average abundance of bacteria was (9.30±3.44)×10⁷ cells/g according to fluorescence microscopy enumeration and observation of buried slides. A total of 313 bacterial strains belonging to 20 genera was obtained from four kinds of culture medium and the separation efficiency of bacteria ranked as RO>M1>Zobell 2216>MR2A. In terms of morphology, physiology and biochemistry, Bacillus (21.08%) and Marinococcus (17.25%) were shown to be the most dominant and highly diverse bacteria. The analysis of 16S rDNA sequence from 73 representative bacteria showed most clones were affiliated with Firmicutes (57.5%): the other marine bacteria including gamma-Proteobacteria (32.9%), Flavobacteria (4.1%), and Actinobacteria (5.5%). Most clones were related to uncultivated bacterial clones retrieved from surface layer sediment and contained several highly divergent 16S rDNA gene sequences. After constructing a molecular library and phylogenetic analysis, the sequenced clones were shown to fall into two phyla of the domain Bacteria, Firmicutes and Proteobacteria, in which Bacillus and gamma-proteobacteria were the dominant groups, respectively. The results revealed that the species and community structure of bacteria in surface layer sediment from the East China Sea continental shelf were abundant and diverse, thus warranting further research and exploitation.

Due to the uneven distribution of organisms on earth, the identification of priority areas for marine biodiversity conservation has become a hot-topic of scientific research. One aim of this research is to allow the effective use of limited resources and reasonable protection of biodiversity. In this paper, priority areas for biodiversity conservation are defined as those areas featuring abundant biodiversity, richness of endemic species, a concentration of rare and endangered species, and important ecological function and process. The techniques and methods used in selecting the priority areas of marine biodiversity conservation were analyzed in three respects, including marine zoning methods, indicator system construction and priority assessment of biodiversity conservation. Basic ideas for determining priority areas of marine biodiversity conservation in Chinese seas were then proposed based on the current status of marine biodiversity in China. Finally, in consideration of existing problems, some suggestions are given, such as the use of a biogeographic classification approach to partition the study area, the construction of an index system at species and ecosystem level, and the establishment of a biodiversity information system (database).

To reduce costs and maximize species protection in China, we identified conservation priorities of endangered terrestrial mammals. Using geographic information system (GIS), we identified the irreplaceable values (IR) of 1,434 units of the terrestrial ecological function areas. Based on the IR values of the units, we divided the units into three classes with decreasing priorities, including the mandatory reserve (MR) units (20), the negotiable reserve (NR) units (29), and the partially reserved (PR) units (40). The MR, NR, and PR units covered 2.2%, 6.0%, and 11.8% of the ecological function areas of the whole country, respectively. Our results suggest that 98% of terrestrial endangered mammals can be conserved within all priority conservation units. Based on these results, we provide suggestions on the priority conservation plans for endangered terrestrial mammals in 89 ecological function units. This study enriches theories of systematic conservation plan (SCP) and at the same time provides practical research with significant importance. It also provides a scientific basis for priority conservation plans of terrestrial ecological function areas and protection of endangered terrestrial mammals in China.

From April 1994 to November 2007, we studied the breeding biology of the Himalayan swiftlet (Aerodramus brevirostris innominata) based on field investigations, behavior observations, and bird bandings in the Shenjing Cave of Hupingshan National Nature Reserve, Hunan Province. Overall, we found a total breeding population of 2,000 swiftlets in the cave. The Himilayan swiftlet is a summer migrant in the area which arrives in early April and departs in early November. This species is monogamous with a sex ratio of about 1:1, and reaches sexual maturity at one year of age. Birds nested in dark caves, with nests primarily composed of saliva and mosses. Birds took 60 days to finish nest construction, and old nests from previous years were fully reused. We found that egg laying began after nest construction and peaked in June. In most cases, two eggs were found in each nest, while occasionally one egg. Both males and females were involved in incubation, but females invested relatively more time. The incubating temperature, duration, and hatching success were 37.3 ± 1.0℃, 27.9 ± 3.4 days, and 71.4%, respectively. Nestlings were altricial, and were fed mainly by males for about 27 days with insects, which were the same as adults’ diet. They spent another 3 or 4 days to learn to fly in the cave before fledgling the nest. Fledglings gained substantial weight, which tended to be greater total weight than the parents, before leaving the nest. We observed a concordant decrease in weight upon reaching sexual maturity. Primary threats to Himalayan swiftlets in China include disturbance to breeding activities resulting from tourism development and illegal nest-collection. We suggest that authorities halt development of caves and surrounding areas and ban the illegal nests collection.

We investigated the community diversity of cave animals in different light zones of the Guizhou Zhijin Cave in August, 2011. We used principal components analysis (PCA) to examine the relationships between animal community diversity and environment factors. We assessed the potential ecological risk degree of heavy metals in the cave based on the Hakanson potential ecological risk index. We identified 1,080 specimens, which belong to three phyla, five classes, 26 families and 41 species or groups of species, which could be divided into five communities. The highest community diversity, richness index, evenness index, and dominance index were light zone of exit (2.7996), light zone of entrance (4.5399), light zone of exit (0.9196) and weak-light zone of exit (0.1868), respectively. Index of similarity between light zone of entrance and light zone of exit (0.6248) was highest. The richness and dominance indices of the communities were low, but community diversity and richness tended to decrease based on the order of the light intensity (i.e., light zone>weak-light zone>dark zone). Dominant species included Hemiphaedusa pluviatilis and H. moellendorffiana. Organic matter of soil, content of CO₂ in the air, cave humidity, cave temperature, and heavy metal contamination of soil were the dominant factors to affect animal community diversity in the cave. Although Cu, Zn, Ni, Cr, As in soils were at ecologically low levels, Hg pollution was relatively high in the whole cave and at especially severe level of ecological risk (E_rⁱ=256.000) in the light zone of cave entrance. As far as the average potential ecological risk level (RI=192.714) of six heavy metals were concerned, the cave was contaminated at a certain degree with heavy metals.

Ex situ conservation, complementary to in situ conservation, plays an important role in preservation and recovery of endangered species. Tsoongiodendron odorum is a relic species that was listed in the Second Grade of the List of Wild Plants Under State Protection (First Batch) in China. For protection of its genetic diversity, ex situ conservation populations have been established and managed outside of natural habitats in several nature reserves since 1980. However, only dozens of individuals are currently saved from each planted population. To assess the actual protective effectiveness of these planted populations, we detected and compared the genetic diversity of three planted populations from Nanling Mountains with four natural populations using ISSR markers. Overall, we detected 362 total ISSR discernible bands with 16 ISSR primers, of which 301 were polymorphic. The percentage of polymorphic bands (P) was 83.2%. At the population level, the percent of polymorphic bands ranged from 37.9% to 62.2%, with an average value of 53.1%. This result showed that T. odorum had high genetic diversity both at population and species levels. However, the percentage of polymorphic bands and Shannon information index (I) of ex situ conservation populations (66.6% and 0.2990) were much lower than those of natural populations (80.9% and 0.3629). We deduced that there was a narrow genetic base for plantations of T. odorum. Population structure analysis revealed that three planted populations could be collected from the same wild population (i.e., YK population). The genetic variation of four natural populations (G_ST=0.2495) showed that there was significant isolation among populations, which would limit gene flow and population differentiation among populations. We present suggestions on regulating seed collection from different natural habitats to establish planted populations and strengthening research on the reproductive biology of T. odorum.

Revealing associations between species composition and environmental characteristics is crucial for understanding species coexistence. In past studies, traditional ecological species groups have been classified subjectively, and the associations between species groups and environment characteristics were not determined quantitatively. In this study, we evaluated environmental relationships of plant species composition among 31 plant communities within different habitats in Tiantong region, Zhejiang Province. Maximum, actual, and relative environmental dependence indices were defined respectively on the basis of plant abundance. We tested the actual association between species composition and environment using a random null hypothesis. The community type-environmental association was confirmed by Pearson correlation between relative environmental dependence index and Mahalanobis distance. The results showed that: (1) the maximum environmental dependence index is an idex of premium community type’s combination from randomization under current conditions and actual environmental dependence, which may be used to indicate preference of species composition to actual habitat conditions. The association between species composition and environmental characteristics may be denoted effectively by the relative environmental dependence index; (2) the relative environmental dependence index did not correlate with most single environmental variables, but significantly correlated with Mahalanobis distance; and (3) if habitat properties were more heterogeneous, species composition-environment association was more unique. These findings provide new evidence for relationships between plant species composition and environment characteristics in the evergreen broad-leaved forests in Tiantong region and an ameliorative reference for how to quantitatively determine species-environmental associations.

Based on the environmental variables that associated with species’ occurrence records, ecological niche modeling (ENM) seeks to characterize environmental conditions suitable for a particular species and then identify where suitable environmental habitats are distributed in the space. Recently, ENM has been used increasingly in biological invasion, conservation biology, biological responses to climate change, disease spatial transmission, and variety aspects of ecology and evolutionary biology research. However, the theoretical background of these applications is generally poorly understood, leading to artifactual conclusions in some studies (e.g. niche differentiation during species’ invasion). In this paper we discuss the relationship between niche and geographic distribution and introduce the theoretical basis of ENM, along with relationships between the niche and ENM. Abiotic/biotic, historical and dispersal factors are three key elements that determine species’ geographic distributions at different scales. By using environmental variables derived from distributional records, ENM is based on observations that already include effects of biotic interactions, therefore ENM is used to characterize somewhere between the realized niche and potential niche, not the fundamental niche. Grinnellian and Eltonian niches are both manifested in ENM calibration, depending on the types of variables used to fit model, the natural spatial scale at which they can be measured, and the dispersal of individuals throughout the environment. Applications of ENM in understanding ecological requirements of species, discovery of new species or populations, nature reserve design, predicting potential invasion, modeling biological responses to climate change, niche conservatism, and species delimitation are discussed in this paper.

Endemism, the restriction of a taxon’s distribution to a specified geographical area, is central to the study of biogeography. Understanding endemism not only concerns a number of evolutionary and biogeographical issues, but also plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity and in the selection of priority areas for conservation. In recent years, various measures and analytical methods have been used to investigate patterns of endemism for various taxa from different regions. The emergence of these new measurements has benefited from the construction of phylogenetic trees and the implementation of data from spatial statistics. Some of these measures, such as phylogenetic diversity, phylogenetic endemism, and biogeographically weighted evolutionary distinctiveness deserve much more attention. Here, we review progress in the methodology used to measure the distribution patterns of endemism. These metrics have generally developed from a single time or space perspective to space-time united patterns. Specifically, the metrics include species richness, phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness, plus all there in combination as well as the weight of species range size. Moreover, we propose that studies on the distribution patterns of Chinese endemic taxa should pay attention to species diversity, phylogenetic diversity, species β-diversity, and phylogenetic β-diversity. In particular, model simulation analysis should be emphasized and implemented during investigations. These studies will provide fundamental knowledge for comprehensive recognition of scale-induced differences and for the detection of mechanisms underlying the distribution patterns of endemic taxa, and therefore provide theoretical support for biodiversity conservation.

Monitoring phenology, the study of the timing of natural events, is an ancient practice that has experienced renewed relevance for scientific research interest in the wake of awareness of anthropogenic climate change. Spring onset has been occurring significantly earlier in temperate regions worldwide. Leaf out phenology has become particularly well studied is of particular interest because the emergence of leaves in the spring is extremely sensitive to temperature, and the leaf out timing of leaf out in temperate ecosystems marks the onset of the growing season and controls many essential ecosystem processes. This article reviews the current literature concerning the different methods used to study leaf out phenology, the controls on leaf out in temperate woody plants, and the effects of climate change on leaf out phenology. In addition to the traditional method of on-the-ground leaf out monitoring, new methods using remote sensing and dedicated cameras have been developed which allow scientists to track spring onset at a much larger scale than had previously been possible. Further work is needed on how leaf phenology will respond to future climate change, and the implications of this for animals and other species interactions among trophic levels.

Microsatellite markers are widely used in genetic analysis, but the common occurrence of null alleles, is an unfortunate drawback, and one which has not been paid enough attention. In this review, we confirm the concept of null alleles and their characteristics, detail methods for estimating the frequency of null alleles and discuss potential causes. We also consider the effect of null alleles on genetic studies, such as measurement of population genetic diversity, parentage analysis and assignment tests. The review has a certain reference value for future studies. One main cause of microsatellite null alleles is poor primer annealing due to nucleotide sequence divergence (point mutations or indels) in one or both flanking primers. Microsatellite null alleles are not a natural characteristic of a specific gene, and are essentially different from isozyme null alleles. Although microsatellite null alleles have the characteristics of universality, complexity and invisibility, we can test and estimate their frequency through multiplex approaches, using Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium tests, parent-offspring genotype analysis, and new primer design. Null alleles have significant effects on the results of genetic analysis, potentially decreasing population genetic diversity and increasing genetic differentiation among populations. Moreover, null alleles may decrease the probability of parentage exclusion, even leading to errors or confusion in parentage analysis. Null alleles should be paid more attention and demand caution in future studies. Through a variety of methods, such as locus selection, null allele data adjustment, and the design of new primers, we can escape the adverse effects of null alleles and achieve greater accuracy in genetic analysis.

The Global Multilateral Benefit-Sharing Mechanism (GMBSM) is an important issue in the negotiations of access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources. The consultation in regard with need for and modalities of GMBSM were initiated after the adoption of the Nagoya Protocol. This paper reviews the development and the main content of the GMBSM and analyzes positions both from provider and user countries. African groups were not able to lead negotiations of these issues due to constraints in capacity, although it is in support of the GMBSM. Some provider countries such as Brazil did not provide their support because of the concern that the GMBSM is likely to be an obstacle to these countries’ sovereign rights. Representative for user countries delayed the process by raising many technical questions. These negotiations indicate that the GMBSM may become a focus of the Conference of Parties serving as the Meetings of Nagoya Protocol, or even have the potential to be a new supplementary protocol. Regardless of this result, the process will be difficult. Participation proposals for the GMBSM negotiations at diplomatic, legal and technical aspects are also provided as follows: (1) strengthening position coordination among major partners, in particular African group; (2) conducting legal research and evaluate the consistency between the GMBSM and other international treaties, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the Antarctic Treaty; (3) carrying out a series of domestic studies to provide support for participation of the GMBSM debate and negotiations.

Achieving the balance between economic development and biodiversity conservation has become increasingly difficult. Here we propose a conservation model for medicinal orchids using Dendrobium catenatum as an example. Specifically we suggest establishment of production and advance processing facilities in the developed regions, and using organization systems involving companies working with forestry farms, and forestry farms in turn working with farmers who cultivate the orchids. In addition, we promoted cultivation of these orchids in natural environments in the Karst and Danxia economically poor regions, for the purpose of restoration and/or augmentation of wild populations while promoting sustainable harvest of their populations. Such profit generating species restoration will increase incentives for habitat protection. This conservation model for an endangered species is different from those developed in the West, but is better suited to the situation in China.