Miscanthus is a promising perennial lignocellulosic crop for biomass production. To avoid competing with arable land used for food crops to promote carbon neutrality, cultivating Miscanthus on marginal land, especially in saline soils in China, is a recommended strategy. However, the adaptability of Miscanthus species in saline soil remains largely unknown. In this study, a total of 354 genotypes, including Miscanthus sinensis, Miscanthus floridulus, Miscanthus sacchariflorus, Miscanthus lutarioriparius and interspecific species hybrids derived from M. sinensis and M. lutarioriparius, were evaluated under different planting times (May and August), salinity levels (low and moderate) and pest damage assessment by Helicoverpa armigera in the Yellow River Delta (YRD), in China. The significant effects of planting time on the adaptability of Miscanthus were observed. Planting in May in the YRD, Miscanthus had a lower establishment survival rate (28.76%) and overwintering rate (72.31%), but a dry weight higher than that of planting in August. In contrast, planting in August in the YRD had a very high establishment survival rate (91.14%) and overwintering rate (80.65%), which indicated August was the optimal month for planting Miscanthus in the YRD, while May could be suitable for screening salinity tolerance in Miscanthus. In addition, using the overall adaptability score calculated by establishment survival, overwintering ability, key agronomic traits and pest damage assessments to evaluate all genotypes in this study indicated that the adaptability of M. lutarioriparius was superior to other species. However, M. lutarioriparius is more sensitive to pest damage than others. Furthermore, interspecific hybrids in Miscanthus exhibited outstanding biomass production and adaptability in this region, indicating that creating hybrids would be the best breeding strategy for marginal lands. These results provide an important theoretical basis for the development of Miscanthus in saline soil in the YRD, China.

Pear lace bug (Stephanitis nashi) is a significant herbivorous pest, harbouring a diverse microbiome crucial for crabapple (Malus sp.) host adaptation. However, the mutual influence of S. nashi- and plant-associated microbiomes on plant responses to pest damage remains unclear. This study found that S. nashi damage significantly altered bacterial community structure and reduced bacterial evenness in the crabapple phyllosphere. Notably, bacterial diversity within S. nashi was significantly lower than that in the environment, potentially influenced by insect developmental stage, bacterial diffusion stage and endosymbiont species number and abundance. Extensive bacterial correlation and diffusion effect between S. nashi and adjacent plant environments were observed, evident in a gradual decrease in bacterial diversity and an increase in bacterial acquisition ratio from soil to phyllosphere to S. nashi. Correspondingly, S. nashi significantly impacted the metabolic response of crabapple leaves, altering pathways involved in vitamin, amino acid and lipid metabolism and so forth. Furthermore, association analysis linked these metabolic changes to phyllosphere bacterial alterations, emphasizing the important role of diffusive phyllosphere microbiome in regulating S. nashi-crabapple interactions. This study highlights bacterial diffusion effect between insect and plants and their potential role in regulating insect adaptability and plant defence responses, providing new insights into plant-insect-microbiome interactions.

The widespread use of petroleum-based plastic mulch in agriculture has accelerated white and microplastic pollution while posing a severe agroecological challenge due to its difficulty in decomposing in the natural environment. However, endowing mulch film with degradability and growth cycle adaptation remains elusive due to the inherent non-degradability of petroleum-based plastics severely hindering its applications. This work reports polylactic acids hyperbranched composite mulch (PCP) and measured biodegradation behavior under burial soil, seawater, and ultraviolet (UV) aging to understand the biodegradation kinetics and to increase their sustainability in the agriculture field. Due to high interfacial interactions between polymer and nanofiler, the resultant PCP mulch significantly enhances crystallization ability, hydrophilicity, and mechanical properties. PCP mulch can be scalable-manufactured to exhibit modulated degradation performance under varying degradation conditions and periods while concurrently enhancing crop growth (wheat). Thus, such mulch with excellent performance can reduce labor costs and the environmental impact of waste mulch disposal to replace traditional mulch for sustainable agricultural production.

The glacier is a crucial freshwater resource in arid and semiarid regions, and the vulnerability of the glacier change is intimately linked to regional ecological services and socio-economic sustainability. Taking the Tianshan Mountains region in China as an example, a basic framework for studying the vulnerability of glacier change was constructed so as to address factors such as physical geography, population status, socio-economic level, agricultural development, and social services. The framework was based on key dimensions, that is, exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability, and this constituted a targeted evaluation index system. We examined the spatial structure and spatial autocorrelation of the glacier change vulnerability using ArcGIS and GeoDa software. The influence and interaction of natural, social, economic, population and other factors on glacier change adaptability was examined using the GeoDetector model. The results suggested the following: (1) The vulnerability level decreased from the western region to the eastern region with significant differences between the two regions. The eastern region had the lowest vulnerability, followed by the central region, and then western region which had the highest vulnerability. (2) Significant positive and negative correlations were found between exposure, sensitivity, and adaptability, indicating that the areas with high exposure and high sensitivity to glacier change tended to have a low adaptive capacity, which led to high vulnerability, and vice versa. (3) The spatial heterogeneity regarding the ability to cope with glacier change reflected the combined effects of the natural, social, economic, and demographic factors. Among them, factors such as the production value of secondary and tertiary industries, the urban population, urban fixed-asset investment, and the number of employees played major roles regarding the spatial heterogeneity of glacier change.

Spring, especially the freeze-thaw season, is considered the key period for the growth and carbon sequestration of desert mosses. It is not clear how the change in environment water and temperature affects the physiological characteristics of desert mosses in freeze-thaw season. In this study, the effects of water and freeze-thaw cycles on the physiological characteristics of Syntrichia caninervis were assessed by manipulating the increase or removal of 65% snow and changes in the freeze-thaw cycles. The results showed that the changes in snow depth, freeze-thaw cycles, and their interaction significantly affected the plant water content, osmoregulatory substances content, antioxidant substance, and antioxidant enzyme activities. The contents of free proline, soluble sugar, ascorbic acid (AsA), reduced glutathione (GSH), and malondialdehyde (MDA), and superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT) activities increased significantly with the decrease in snow depth and freeze-thaw cycles. POD and free proline were the most sensitive to the snow depth and freeze-thaw cycles, while SOD and CAT were the least sensitive. Therefore, compared with the increase in freeze-thaw cycles, the reduction in freeze-thaw cycles weakened the physiological sensitivity of S. caninervis to snow depth changes.