Dogs are believed to be an indicator animal for plague surveillance, but their association with PPP is rare. Our results provide evidence for this possibility, which suggests the public health significance of dogs as a source of plague.

Carbon dynamics of grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau may play an important role in regional and global carbon cycles. The CENTURY model (Version 4.5) is used to examine temporal and spatial variations of soil organic carbon (SOC) in grasslands on the Plateau for the period from 1960 to 2002. The model successfully simulates the dynamics of aboveground carbon and soil surface SOC at the soil depth of 0-20 cm and the simulated results agree well to the measurements. Examination of SOC for eight typical grasslands shows different patterns of temporal variation in different ecosystems in 1960-2002. The extent of temporal variation increases with the increase of SOC of ecosystem. SOC increases first and decreases quickly then during the period from 1990 to 2000. Spatially, SOC density obtained for the equilibrium condition declines gradually from the southeast to the northwest on the plateau and showed a high heterogeneity in the eastern plateau. The results suggest that (i) SOC density in the alpine grasslands shows remarkable response to climate change during the 42 years, and (ii) the net carbon exchange rate between the alpine grassland ecosystems and the atmosphere increases from 1990 to 2000 as compared with that before 1990. carbon cycle, CENTURY model, climate change, global warming, soil organic carbon.

No abstract

The subunit vaccine SV1 (20 μg F1 + 10 μg rV270) has been identified as the optimal formulation in mice, which provided a good protection against plague in mice, guinea pigs and rabbits. To compare SV1 and SV2 (200 μg F1 + 100 μg rV270) with live attenuated vaccine EV76, antibody responses, protective efficacy, cytokines (IFN‐γ, TNF‐α, IL‐2, IL‐4, IL‐10 and IL‐12) production, CD4/CD8 ratio and CD69+ T‐cell activation marker were determined in sera of the immunized Chinese‐origin rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta. The immunized animals with SV1 or SV2 developed higher anti‐rV270 IgG titre, while those immunized with EV76 elicited a negligible IgG to V antigen, indicating that subunit vaccine (SV) had an advantage over EV76 in terms of the indispensable role of anti‐V antibody against Yersinia pestis. There was no significant antibody titre difference between SV1 and SV2, suggesting that the immune response may have been saturated at the dose level of SV1. There were no statistical changes for CD4/CD8 ratios, IL‐4 and CD69 levels between the three‐vaccine immunized groups. However, a significant higher level of IL‐12 was observed in the EV76 immunized animals, indicating that EV76 had an advantage over SV in respect of cellular immunity. Complete protection was observed for the immunized animals with SV and EV76, revealing that SV has a similar protective efficacy with EV76 against 6 × 106 CFU of Y. pestis challenge by subcutaneous route in Chinese‐origin rhesus macaques.