Correlates of extinction risk in Chinese endemic birds

Background: China has a relative high degree of endemism of birds due to its large area, diversified topography, and varied climates and habitats. Among the 77 Chinese endemic birds, 29 species are classified as threatened according to the officially released China Biodiversity Red List in 2015. Chinese endemic birds should be the focus of conservation because their local extinction in China means complete global extinction. However, to date, no study has explicitly examined the patterns and processes of extinction and threat in Chinese endemic birds. Methods: We obtained eleven biological traits and four extrinsic factors that are commonly hypothesized to influence extinction risk. After phylogenetic correction, these factors were used separately and in combination to assess their associations with extinction risk. Results: We found that 37.7% of Chinese endemic birds were listed as threatened (Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered). Small range size, high hunting vulnerability, and high human population density were important predictors of high extinction risk in Chinese endemic birds. Conclusions: Our study is the first to systematically investigate the patterns and processes of extinction risk in Chinese endemic birds. We suggest that endemic species with small range size and living in area with high human densities require conservation priorities. Conservation efforts should also focus on the reduction of human threats, such as human hunting and habitat degradation, for the effective preservation of Chinese endemic birds.

Performance Evaluation of Flows with Diverse Traffic and Transmission Rates in IEEE 802.11 WLAN

IEEE 802.11 WLAN cannot guarantee the QoS of applications, thus admission control has been proposed as an essen-tial solution to enhance the QoS. Packet delay and throughput are commonly employed as assessment criterions to determine whether a new connection can be admitted into the WLAN. Considering the real network condition, the analytical model is presented in this paper, which is aimed to evaluate the packet delay and throughput performance of IEEE 802.11 WLAN in nonsaturated conditions, taking into account diverse transmission rates and diverse traffic flows (i.e. flows with different packet sizes and arrival rates) simultaneously. This model is based on Markov chain and the theoretical predictions are verified by simulation in OPNET 14.5. We also analyze the influences of transmission rate diversity and traffic flow diversity on throughput performance. It is observed that, the presence of even one station with lower transmission rate can cause a considerable degradation in throughput performance of all the stations when they have the same packet size and arrival rate. Higher system throughput can be achieved if lower transmission rate stations transmit packets with smaller size or arrival rate.

中国鸟类的生活史和生态学特征数据集

中国现有1,445种鸟类,是世界上鸟类物种数最多的国家之一。物种特征反映了生物有机体的功能和适合度,在生态学、进化生物学和保护生物学研究中具有重要作用。但是,目前还没有关于我国鸟类生活史、生态学和地理分布等物种特征的完整数据库。通过系统查阅文献和各种数据资料,本文共收集整理出了中国1,445种鸟类17个功能特征数据:体重、体长、嘴峰长、翅长、尾长、跗蹠长、食性、窝卵数、卵大小、卵体积、巢址、巢的类型、集群状况、迁徙状况、是否特有种、地理分布范围和分布省份等。在这些特征中,除迁徙状况、是否特有种、地理分布范围和分布省份外,其余特征数据均存在不同程度的缺失,数据的完整度为60.83%‒100%。本数据库是目前关于中国鸟类最新和最全的物种特征数据库,期望能为我国鸟类生态学、进化生物学、生物地理学、保护生物学等研究提供支持。