Grassland biomass is essential for maintaining grassland ecosystems. Moreover, biomass is an important characteristic of grassland. In this study, we combined field sampling with remote sensing data and calculated five vegetation indices (VIs). Using this combined information, we quantified a remote sensing estimation model and estimated biomass in a temperate grassland of northern China. We also explored the dynamic spatio-temporal variation of biomass from 2006 to 2012. Our results indicated that all VIs investigated in the study were strongly correlated with biomass (α < 0.01). The precision of the model for estimating biomass based on ground data and remote sensing was greater than 73%. Additionally, the results of our analysis indicated that the annual average biomass was 11.86 million tons and that the average yield was 604.5 kg/ha. The distribution of biomass exhibited substantial spatial heterogeneity, and the biomass decreased from the eastern portion of the study area to the western portion. The highest coefficient of variation was found for the desert steppe, followed by the typical steppe and the meadow steppe.

We predict by first principles calculations that the recently prepared borophene is a pristine twodimensional (2D) monolayer superconductor, in which the superconductivity can be significantly enhanced by strain and charge carrier doping. The intrinsic metallic ground state with high density of states at Fermi energy and strong Fermi surface nesting lead to sizeable electron-phonon coupling, making the freestanding borophene superconduct with Tc close to 19.0 K. The tensile strain can increase Tc to 27.4 K, while the hole doping can notably increase Tc to 34.8 K. The results indicate that the borophene grown on substrates with large lattice parameters or under photoexcitation can show enhanced superconductivity with Tc far more above liquid hydrogen temperature of 20.3 K, which will largely broaden the applications of such novel material.

A pair of type-II Dirac cones in PdTe2 was recently predicted by theories and confirmed in experiments, making PdTe2 the first material that processes both superconductivity and type-II Dirac fermions. In this work, we study the evolution of Dirac cones in PdTe2 under hydrostatic pressure by the first-principles calculations. Our results show that the pair of type-II Dirac points disappears at 6.1 GPa. Interestingly, a new pair of type-I Dirac points from the same two bands emerges at 4.7 GPa. Due to the distinctive band structures compared with those of PtSe2 and PtTe2, the two types of Dirac points can coexist in PdTe2 under proper pressure (4.7-6.1 GPa). The emergence of type-I Dirac cones and the disappearance of type-II Dirac ones are attributed to the increase/decrease of the energy of the states at Γ and A point, which have the anti-bonding/bonding characters of interlayer Te-Te atoms. On the other hand, we find that the superconductivity of PdTe2 slightly decreases with pressure. The pressure-induced different types of Dirac cones combined with superconductivity may open a promising way to investigate the complex interactions between Dirac fermions and superconducting quasi-particles.