An increasing number of alternative flame retardants (FRs) are being introduced, following the international bans on the use of polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) commercial mixtures. FRs’ production capacity has shifted from developed countries to developing countries, with China being the world’s largest producer and consumer of FRs. These chemicals are also imported with e-waste to China. Therefore, it is important to understand the current status of regulated brominated FRs, their phase-out in China, and their replacement by alternatives. In this study, a broad suite of legacy and alternative FRs, including eight PBDEs, six novel brominated FRs (NBFRs), two dechlorane plus variants (DPS), and 12 organophosphate FRs (OPFRs) were evaluated in the air of 10 large Chinese cities in 2018. OPFRs are the most prevalent FRs in China, exhibiting a wide range of 1–612 ng/m3, which is several orders of magnitude higher than PBDEs (1–1827 pg/m3) and NBFRs (1–1428 pg/m3). BDE 209 and DBDPE are the most abundant compounds in brominated FRs (>80%). The North China Plain (NCP, excluding Beijing), Guangzhou, and Lanzhou appear to be three hotspots, although with different FR patterns. From 2013/2014 to 2018, levels of PBDEs, NBFRs, and DPs have significantly decreased, while that of OPFRs has increased by 1 order of magnitude. Gas-particle partitioning analysis showed that FRs could have not reached equilibrium, and the steady-state model is better suited for FRs with a higher log K OA (>13). To facilitate a more accurate FR assessment in fine particles, we suggest that, in addition to the conventional volumetric concentration (pg/m3), the mass-normalized concentration (pg/g PM2.5) could also be used.

The alpine ecosystem as one of the most representative terrestrial ecosystems has been highly concerned due to its susceptibility to anthropogenic impacts and climatic changes. However, the distribution pattern of alpine soil bacterial communities and related deterministic factors still remain to be explored. In this study, soils were collected from different altitudes and slope aspects of the Mount (Mt.) Shergyla, Tibetan Plateau, and were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene-based bioinformatics approaches. Acidobacteriota and Proteobacteria were identified consistently as the two predominant phyla in all soil samples, accounting for approximately 74% of the bacterial community. The alpha diversity of the soil bacterial community generally increased as the vegetation changed with the elevated altitude, but no significant differences in alpha diversity were observed between the two slopes. Beta diversity analysis of bacterial community showed that soil samples from the north slope were always differentiated obviously from the paired samples at the south slope with the same altitude. The whole network constituted by soil bacterial genera at the Mt. Shergyla was parsed into eight modules, and Elev-16S-573, Sericytochromatia, KD4-96, TK10, Pedomicrobium, and IMCC26256 genera were identified as the “hubs” in the largest module. The distance-based redundancy analysis (db-RDA) demonstrated that variations in soil bacterial community thereof with the altitude and slope aspects at the Mt. Shergyla were closely associated with environmental variables such as soil pH, soil water content, metal concentrations, etc. Our results suggest that environmental variables could serve as the deterministic factors for shaping the spatial pattern of soil bacterial community in the alpine ecosystems.