Six new chrysophycean stomatocysts ornamented with reticulum from the Great Xing'an Mountains, China

Six new chrysophycean stomatocysts ornamented with reticulum were illustrated based on SEM observation. They were described following the guidelines of the International Statospore Working Group (ISWG). All samples were collected from the Great Xing'an Mountains, China. Their taxonomic characteristics and habitats were described to provide new information on the biodiversity of chrysophycean stomatocysts. As is common with many morphotypes, their biological affinities remain unknown.

Effects of meteorological factors on the defoliation dynamics of the larch caterpillar(Dendrolimus superans Butler)in the Great Xing’an boreal forests

Larch caterpillars are widely distributed in the Great Xing’an boreal forests;however,the relationship between caterpillar defoliation dynamics and climatic factors is poorly understood.The aims of this study are to investigate the primary weather conditions that might influence forest defoliation and to identify the most important life stage of the larch caterpillar at which forest defoliation might be mitigated by incorporating more inhibitory influences from climatic factors.The life cycle of the larch caterpillar was partitioned into four stages and multiple linear regression and mixed effect models were combined with a relative weight analysis approach to evaluate the importance and influence of meteorological variables on defoliation dynamics.The results show that warmer temperatures in growing seasons and overwintering periods can increase the defoliation area,while rainy and humid growing seasons decrease the defoliation area.Total precipitation during the early instar larval period had the greatest power to explain the variance in defoliation dynamics and had a very strong inhibitory effect,followed by the accumulative temperatures of the late instar larval period which had a positive impact,and precipitation during the middle instar larval period which had a negative impact.Weather conditions during the early instar larval period had the greatest influence on the area defoliated and accounted for 40%of the explained variance.This study demonstrates that climatic warming and drying will increase the risk of larch caterpillar outbreaks in the Great Xing’an Mountains.

Understory vascular plant community assembly in relation to time-since-fire and environmental variables in a Chinese boreal forest

Understanding the response of understory vegetation to fire disturbance is vital to biodiversity conservation and management of boreal forests. We surveyed understory vascular plant richness and composition, and measured related environmental variables along a toposequence within three successional stages, initial （3 years post-fire）, early （13 years post-fire） and late （〉1oo years post-fire） successional stages. Using permutation multivariate ANOVA and nonmetric multidimensional scaling, we analyzed how understory species richness and composition change as time-since-fire proceeds, and their correlative relationships with environmental variables. Species richness and composition showed significant differences among the three successional stages. Understory species richness and abundance were significantly associated with time-since-fire, topographic position, elevation and organic layer depth. Among these variables, time-since-fire had the strongest effect and topographic position was the second major factor on affecting understorycommunity assembly. In overwhelmed the effects addition, time-since-fire of soil pH in the initial successional stage and gravimetric soil moisture in early and late successional stages on understory species composition