The complete mitochondrial genomes of Parabotia lijiangensis (Cypriniformes: Botiidae)

In this study, we obtained the 16,579 base pair (bp) mitochondrial DNA sequence of Parabotia lijiangensis. The mitogenome encodes 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes, a control region, and has a nucleotide composition of A: 30.8%, T: 25.2%, G: 16.1%, and C: 27.9% (AT content: 56.0%). The complete mitogenome of P. lijiangensis provides essential and important DNA molecular data for further phylogenetic and evolutionary analysis of the Botiidae family

Scaling relationships between leaf mass and total plant mass across Chinese forests.

Biomass partitioning is important for illustrating terrestrial ecosystem carbon flux. West, Brown and Enquist (WBE) model predicts that an optimal 3/4 allometric scaling of leaf mass and total biomass of individual plants will be applied in diverse communities. However, amount of scientific evidence suggests an involvement of some biological and environmental factors in interpreting the variation of scaling exponent observed in empirical studies. In this paper, biomass information of 1175 forested communities in China was collected and categorized into groups in terms of leaf form and function, as well as their locations to test whether the allocation pattern was conserved or variable with internal and/or environmental variations. Model Type II regression protocol was adopted to perform all the regressions. The results empirically showed that the slopes varied significantly across diverse forested biomes, between conifer and broadleaved forests, and between evergreen and deciduous forests. Based on the results, leaf form and function and their relations to environments play a significant role in the modification of the WBE model to explore more accurate laws in nature

Scaling relations of leaf mass (<i>M</i>_L, Ton/individual) and total biomass (<i>M</i>_T, Ton/individual) in evergreen forest (EF) and deciduous forest (DF).

<p><i>M</i>_T includes leaves, branches, stems and roots. The lines are linear RMA fits to the log-transformed data.</p

Vegetation, climatic characteristics and ages of biomes in Luo (1996).

<p><i>TDCF</i> Temperate Deciduous Coniferous Forest, <i>TECF</i> Temperate Evergreen Coniferous Forest, <i>TDBF</i> Temperate Deciduous Broadleaved Forest, <i>SEBF</i> Subtropical Evergreen Broadleaved Forest, <i>SECF</i> Subtropical Evergreen Cniferous Forest. MAT (°C) stands for Mean Annual Temperature (°C). MAP (mm) stands for Mean Annual Precipitation (mm). PET (mm) stands for Potential Evapotransporation (mm).</p

Allometric scaling relationships of leaf mass and total mass between evergreen and deciduous forests as estimated by standardized Major Axis Estimation and Testing Routines (SMATR).

<p><i>β</i> is the exponent as a consequence of individual <i>M</i>_L (leaf mass, tons/individual) scales with <i>M</i>_T (total mass, tons/individual). 95%CIs and SE are confidence intervals and standard error for <i>β</i> and <i>K</i>, respectively. No. is the number of plots. <i>EF</i> and <i>DF</i> represent Evergreen Forest and Deciduous Forest, respectively.</p

Allometric scaling relationships of leaf mass and total mass across biomes as estimated by standardized Major Axis Estimation and Testing Routines (SMATR).

<p><i>β</i> is the exponent as a consequence of individual <i>M</i>_L (leaf mass, tons/individual) scales with <i>M</i>_T (total mass, tons/individual). 95%CIs and SE are confidence intervals and standard error for <i>β</i> and <i>K</i>, respectively. No. is the number of plots. <i>TDCF</i>, <i>TECF</i>, <i>TDBF</i>, <i>SEBF</i>, <i>SECF</i> are defined as in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0095938#pone-0095938-t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>.</p

Allometric scaling relationships of leaf mass and total mass between conifer and broadleaved forests as estimated by standardized Major Axis Estimation and Testing Routines (SMATR).

<p><i>β</i> is the exponent as a consequence of individual <i>M</i>_L (leaf mass, tons/individual) scales with <i>M</i>_T (total mass, tons/individual). 95%CIs and SE are confidence intervals and standard error for <i>β</i> and <i>K</i>, respectively. No. is the number of plots. <i>CF</i> and <i>BF</i> represent Conifer Forest and Broadleaved Forest, respectively.</p

Testing predictions of the energetic equivalence rule in forest communities

As growth rate is a reasonable proxy measure of the rate of resource use per plant individual, the 'energetic equivalence rule' predicts that net primary productivity (the rate of biomass production per unit area, NPP) will be independent of plant biomass and maximum population density in plant communities. However, only a few studies have tested these relationships in plant communities. In this study, we investigated allometric scaling of net primary productivity (NPP) to tree biomass (M) and density (N) across a range of tree-dominated communities in China. The aim was to test the universality of the 'energetic equivalence rule' (i.e. whether the exponents of these relationships take a universal value of 0) in forest communities. We used both ordinary least square (OLS) and standardized major axis (SMA) regression for selected boundary points, and quantile regression (QR) to estimate the slopes of regression lines. QR, OLS and SMA regression all showed that four NPP-M and two NPP-N exponents were different from 0 across the 8 forest types. In addition, when we combined all the data to determine a larger pattern that typifies Chinese forests, five out of the six exponents of NPP-M and NPP-N relationships deviated strongly from 0. Therefore the universality of the 'energetic equivalence rule' does not hold for forest communities at both the regional and the national scale of China. However, the "zero" exponent seems to be a central tendency for NPP-M and NPP-N relationships in 7 out of 8 forest types. Deviation from the energetic equivalence possibly reflects multiple, unsound assumptions for "an average idealized forest" by metabolic scaling theory, as well as unaccounted-for variations of site factors (e.g. stand age and stand conditions) within forest communities. In addition, our study suggested that statistical methods should be subject to strict scrutiny in testing the 'energetic equivalence rule'

Scaling relations of leaf mass (<i>M</i>_L, Ton/individual) and total biomass (<i>M</i>_T, Ton/individual) in differing forested biomes.

<p><i>M</i>_T includes leaves, branches, stems and roots. The lines are linear RMA fits to the log-transformed data. For each biome, data include dominant trees from stands of variable age: (A) TDCF, (B) TECF, (C) TDBF, (D) SEBF, (E) SECF. All data are pooled in (F).</p