The timing of phenological events is highly sensitive to climate change, and may influence ecosystem structure and function. Although changes in flowering phenology among species under climate change have been reported widely, how species-specific shifts will affect phenological synchrony and community-level phenology patterns remains unclear. We conducted a manipulative experiment of warming and precipitation addition and reduction to explore how climate change affected flowering phenology at the species and community levels in an alpine meadow on the eastern Tibetan Plateau.We found that warming advanced the first and last flowering times differently and with no consistent shifts in flowering duration among species, resulting in the entire flowering period of species emerging earlier in the growing season.Early-flowering species were more sensitive to warming than mid-and late-flowering species, thereby reducing flowering synchrony among species and extending the community-level flowering season. However, precipitation and its interactions with warming had no significant effects on flowering phenology. Our results suggest that temperature regulates flowering phenology from the species to community levels in this alpine meadow community, yet how species shifted their flowering timing and duration in response to warming varied. This species-level divergence may reshape flowering phenology in this alpine plant community. Decreasing flowering synchrony among species and the extension of community-level flowering seasons under warming may alter future trophic interactions, with cascading consequences to community and ecosystem function.

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Human sperm acrosome membrane-associated protein 1 (hSAMP32) plays an important role in the acrosome reaction, sperm–egg primary binding, secondary binding and fusion processes. However, its spatial structural and invivo antifertility function remain unknown. In this study, we first analysed the physical and chemical characteristics and antigenic epitopes of immunised mice using bioinformatics. Then, we constructed the prokaryotic expression vector pcDNA3.1-hSAMP32 to immunise BALB/c mice invivo. IgG antibodies in the serum were detected, and the litter size of female mice and the number of the hamster eggs penetrated were counted. hSAMP32 was found to contain six hydrophilic regions and a signal peptide beginning at amino acid position 29. The transmembrane region of hSAMP32 was located within amino acids 217–239 with α-helices and random coil structures. We predicted five antigenic epitopes. The molecular weight of hSAMP32 was 59 kDa. Moreover, the results of invivo studies revealed that 56 days after the first immunisation, the litter size was significantly smaller for female pcDNA-3.1(+)-hSAMP32-immunised (mean±s.d. 4.33±1.21) than control mice (9.50±0.55), indicating that the immunocontraception vaccine had an antifertility effect. This experiment presents a theoretical and experimental basis for in-depth study of the hSAMP32 mechanism within the sperm-egg fusing process and for the screening of antigenic epitopes with immunocontraceptive properties.

Flowering and fruiting phenology of plants is sensitive to environmental cues, and changes in reproductive phenology of individual plant species under climate change have been widely reported. However, how species‐level phenological responses scale up to affect community‐level reproductive phenology patterns (synchrony and reproductive duration) are still unclear. An experiment on the effects of nitrogen (N) addition and precipitation changes on reproductive phenological traits of 52 species was conducted in an alpine meadow on the eastern Tibetan Plateau to determine the influence of the phenological response in different functional groups on community‐level reproductive phenology. N addition significantly delayed the onset date of reproductive phenology of sedges (early‐flowering species) and advanced the end date of reproduction of forbs (late‐flowering species). Meanwhile, N addition reduced the number of individuals involved in reproduction of sedges and forbs, but it increased that of grasses (late‐flowering species). Furthermore, N addition increased reproductive synchrony, delayed the onset and shortened the duration of reproductive phenology at the community level. However, precipitation changes and their interaction with N addition had no significant effect on reproductive phenology of the alpine plant community. Synthesis. These results suggested that differences in the direction and magnitude of response of different species to N enrichment lead to compression of reproductive duration at the community level, increasing the degree of overlap between reproductive events, which could change future species diversity, trophic interactions and productivity accumulation in alpine meadows on the Tibetan Plateau. Overall, knowledge of phenological responses from plant functional groups to the community level contributes to robust prediction and mechanistic understanding of community structure and function in response to future climate change.