No abstract

Artemisinin is the first-line drug for anti-malaria recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). As the sole natural plant source of artemisinin, ecotypes of Artemisia annua L. vary widely in artemisinin content between nations, and China is the main producing area of A. annua. Here we present a three-dimensional evaluation on ecotypic diversity of A. annua from 12 main producing areas in China using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with evaporative light scattering detection (HPLC-ELSD) method, DNA barcoding and ecological analyses. The results indicated that A. annua exhibited high ecotypic diversity. A. annua grown in the South of the Qinling Mountains-Huaihe River Line had a high artemisinin content, whereas the northern ones were low. Similar pattern was noted in the genetic diversity. The southern A. annua had high intraspecific variation in contrast to the northern A. annua. In terms of ecological analyses, humidity and sunshine time could be the major limiting ecological factors that affect the accumulation of artemisinin. This is the first reported three-dimensional evaluation integrating chemical, molecular and ecological analyses of the ecotypic diversity of A. annua. The work will facilitate exploring the genetic basis of chemical variations and developing strategies for the breeding and cultivation of high quality A. annua.

Oil spill has led to severe environmental and ecological problems. Due to the harsh environmental conditions, the bioremediation technology is not successfully used to remedy the oil spill in marine environment. In this study, immobilization technology was used to immobilize bacteria on natural organic carriers (i.e., wood chips and maize straw). The higher surface area of in wood chips leads to larger biomass density (0.0242 gVSS/g) than that of maize straw of 0.0097 gVSS/g carrier. Compared with biodegradation efficiency of free bacteria (44.79%), the immobilized bacteria on wood chips and maize straw reached to 73.39% and 52.28%, respectively. The high biological activity of the immobilized bacteria can be also explained by nutrients, such as TN (total nitrogen) and TP (total phosphorus), released from wood chips and maize straw, which was 8.83 mg/g and 5.53 mg/g, 0.0624 mg/g and 0.0099 mg/g, respectively.

China took great efforts to reforestation, even turned the long-term forest loss into a net gain, but this cannot hide the loss of species diversity due to destruction of primary forests, habitat loss, invasion of alien species, and over exploitation. Here we provide such a case by recording a dying tree species of Lauraceae from the evergreen forests of SE Yunnan of China and adjoining Vietnam. We made field collections and observations for four consecutive years from 2009 to 2012. Phylogenetic analyses were conducted based on a combined dataset from nrITS and plastid trnL-trnF region, rpl16 intron, and psbA-trnH spacer. The results indicate that the Asiatic Beilschmiedia and Syndiclis are reciprocally monophyletic with Endiandra as a sister group, and both morphology and molecular phylogeny clearly suggest that the new species belongs to Beilschmiedia. Thus Beilschmiedia turbinata Bing Liu et Y. Yang is illustrated and described as new to science, color plates, line drawings, distribution map and comparison with related species are provided. This new species is similar to B. yunnanensis in the small and ferruginous-brown tomentose terminal buds, elliptic to oblong-lanceolate and alternate or subopposite leaves bearing the fine veinlet reticulation, but differs from the latter by the smaller flowers, the eglandular stamens of the third whorl, and the large turbinate furfuraceous fruits.