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    Global soil map pinpoints key sites for conservation

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    Global hotspots for soil nature conservation

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    Ecological risk and health risk analysis of soil potentially toxic elements from oil production plants in central China

    Description of PTEsThe descriptive statistics of the contents of soil PTEs in the study area were shown in Table 1. From Table 1, the mean contents of As and Ni in the oil-affected soils exceeded their corresponding risk screening values33, which may damage the soil ecological environment and affect crop growth. Compared with the secondary standard of soil environmental quality34, the mean contents of As, Cu and Zn were all lower than their corresponding Grade II standard values, but the mean contents of Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb in the oil-affected soils were 1.07, 7.46, 7.14 and 1.36 times of their standard values. In contrast with the background value of Hubei province35, except Mn, the mean contents of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn and Ba in the oil-affected soils all exceeded their background values. Meanwhile, the variation coefficient of Cr (1.41) was greater than 1. In general, the soil Cd concentration in the study area was higher than that around Gudao Town, a typical oil-producing region of the Shengli Oilfield in the Yellow River Delta, China12, and from Yellow River Delta, a traditional oil field in China9, but was lower than that around two crude oil flow stations in the Niger Delta, Nigeria36. The concentrations of other PTEs were higher than the corresponding element concentrations, detected in the soil around Gudao Town, a typical oil-producing region of the Shengli Oilfield in the Yellow River Delta, China12, from Yellow River Delta, a traditional oil field in China9, and around two crude oil flow stations in the Niger Delta, Nigeria36. The above analysis exhibited that PTEs in the oil-affected soils had a certain degree of accumulation and may be affected by human activities.Table 1 Statistical characteristics for potential toxic elements in in the study area (mg·kg−1).Full size tableLevels of PTEs enrichment and pollutionThe EF and PLI of soil PTEs in the study area were calculated to evaluate the pollution degree of soil PTEs. The calculation results of EF and PLI were shown in Fig. 2 and Table S4. From Fig. 2, the mean EF values of PTEs were showed as Pb  > Cr  > Ni  > As  > Cd  > Zn  > Cu  > Ba. The mean EFs of all PTEs were greater than 1. Among them, the average EF of Cu, Zn and Ba was between 1 and 2, which was slightly enriched. And As (2.18) and Cd (2.12) were moderately enriched. In particular, the average EF values of Cr, Ni and Pb were 14.23, 8.69 and 15.45, respectively, reaching a significant enrichment level, and all samples of Cr, Ni and Pb were at moderate or above enrichment, of which 10% of the Cr samples were extreme pollution, 85% of Cr samples, 95% of Ni and 5% of Pb (Table S4) were significantly enriched. These proved that these PTEs were generally enriched in the study area, especially Cr, Ni and Pb.Figure 2The map of enrichment factor and contamination factor of PTEs in the study area.Full size imageExcept Mn, the average CF values of other PTEs were all  > 1 (Fig. 2), indicating that the accumulation of Mn in the study area was relatively light, and there was no obvious Mn pollution. The CF values of all samples of As, Cr, Ni and Pb, 80% of Cd samples, 75% of Cu samples, 30% of Mn samples, 65% of Zn samples and 75% of Ba samples (Table S4) were higher than 1. And the mean CF values of Cr, Ni and Pb were 14.21, 7.58 and 12.73, respectively, certifying that the pollution of Cr, Ni and Pb in the study area was considerably serious. PLI was calculated based on the CF value of PTEs, and the results were shown in Fig. 2. The average value of PLI was 2.62, indicating that the soil PTEs in the study area were seriously polluted.Spatial distribution of soil PTEs in the study areaGeostatistical analysis was utilized to do ordinary Kriging interpolation of the PTEs in the study area, the results were shown in Fig. 3. As shown in Fig. 3, the spatial distribution of As, Cr, Ni, Zn and Ba was relatively consistent, and their hot spots were concentrated in the southeast, northwest, and central and eastern parts of the study area where oil wells were distributed. The spatial distribution of Cr and Ni exhibited that there were large-scale hotspots near the oil wells, and the content of Cr and Ni in these hotspots was much higher than second-level environmental quality standards of China, which proved that the content of soil Cr and Ni was significantly affected by the oil production activities of the oil production plant. There were crude oil leaks in B and C, and the contents of Zn and Ba in the vicinity of these two oil wells were relatively high, indicating that soil Zn and Ba in this area may be affected by the crude oil leakage, resulting in a certain degree of accumulation in the soil. The area with the second highest As content mainly resided in the middle of the study area. According to the survey, the herbicides were sprayed every year around the H oil well in the middle of the study area, indicating that the accumulation of As in the soil was not only related to oil extraction activities, but also to the use of pesticides (contains copper arsenate, sodium arsenate, etc.)10, 14. In addition, the hot spots of spatial distribution of Pb, Cd and Mn were concentrated in the southeast, and Cu was mainly concentrated in the southeast and midwest. As analyzed above, in addition to Mn, the PTEs Pb, Cd and Cu all have a certain degree of accumulation. And the investigation found that there were many petroleum machinery manufacturing plants in the central and eastern part of the study area, therefore, the accumulation of Pb, Cd and Cu in the soil may be related to factors such as petroleum extraction, crude oil leakage and machinery manufacturing. The above analysis indicated that the influence of human activities is evident on the distribution of soil PTEs3, 23.Figure 3spatial distribution map of soil PTEs in the study area.Full size imagePotential ecological risk assessmentThe potential ecological risk assessment model after adjusting the threshold was used to evaluate the PER of the oil production plant. The individual potential ecological risk of PTEs was shown in Table 2. From Table 2, the average ({E}_{r}^{i}) values of PTEs were Cr  > Pb  > Cd  > Ni  > As  > Cu  > Zn  > Mn. The average ({E}_{r}^{i}) values of Cr and Pb were 79.62 and 63.64, respectively, reaching a relatively high level of potential ecological risk; the average ({E}_{r}^{i}) values of Cd and Ni were 55.95 and 37.91, respectively, which were at medium potential ecological risk level; the average ({E}_{r}^{i}) values of other PTEs were all lower than 30, with minor potential ecological risk. Specifically, all samples of Cu, Mn and Zn were at slight potential ecological risk level; 5% of As samples, 80% of Cd, 85% of Cr, 80% of Ni and 100% of Pb (Table S5) were at medium and above potential ecological risk. In particular, the potential ecological risks of 35% of Cd samples, 10% of Cr samples, 5% of Ni samples and 80% of Pb samples (Table S5) were relatively high, 10% Cd samples reached high potential ecological risk level, and 10% Cr samples had extremely high potential ecological risk. In summary, Geostatistical analysis shows that the hotspot distribution of all PTEs in the study area is almost related to the distribution of oil wells. In addition, the hotspot distribution of PTEs may also be related to factors such as agricultural and industrial activities3. The average value of PER in the study area was 265.08, and the proportions of the three risk levels of medium, slightly high and high were 5%, 75% and 20%, respectively (Table S5). It proved that the study area was at a higher potential ecological risk. Among them, the PER values of samples A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I and J (Table 2) were all greater than 280, reaching fairly high ecological risk.Table 2 Single ecological risk index and potential ecological risk of soil PTEs in study area.Full size tableHuman health risk assessmentThe non-carcinogenic risk assessment of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn and Ba in the soils of the study area was carried out, and the assessment results were shown in Table 3. The THI values of children and adults under the three exposure routes of soil PTEs in the study area were 7.31 and 1.03, respectively, and the THI values were all  > 1, which indicated that soil PTEs around the oil production plants posed significant non-carcinogenic health risks to children and adults. The non-carcinogenic hazardous quotient (HQ) of children and adults in Table 3 revealed that the HQ of all PTEs for adults under each exposure route was less than 1, while the HQ of Cr and Pb for children under the oral intake route was greater than 1, which were 4.91 and 1.17, respectively. For HQ with different exposure routes of the same PTE, each soil PTE presented the risk of oral ingestion  > oral and nasal inhalation risk  > skin contact risk. The result was in agreement with the reports14, 37. Therefore, oral intake was the main exposure route of non-carcinogenic risk, and oral intake of Cr and Pb caused serious non-carcinogenic risk to children. Statistical analysis of HI for soil PTEs in the study area showed that the HI values of PTEs for children were significantly higher than those of adults, and the HI values of PTEs in children and adults were all Cr  > Pb  >   > As  > Ni  > Mn  > Ba  > Cu  > Zn  > Cd. Among them, the HI values of all PTEs for adults were less than 1, indicating that the non-carcinogenic risks caused by a single PTE did not have a significant impact on adults; while the HI values of Cr and Pb for children were 4.93 and 1.17 greater than 1, indicating that they have caused serious non-carcinogenic risk to local children. In addition, the HI values of As and Ni for children and the HI values of As, Cr and Pb for adults were all greater than 0.1, which requires attention. In summary, children suffered from significant non-carcinogenic risk, and adults suffered from minor non-carcinogenic risk in the study area; soil Cr and Pb were the most important non-carcinogenic risk factors for children and adults in the study area.Table 3 Non-cancer and cancer risk assessment of adults and children under different exposure routes.Full size tableIn this study, soil As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb from the study area were assessed for carcinogenic risk, and the results were shown in Table 3. The TCRI of children and adults under the three exposure routes of these five PTEs were 9.44E−04 and 5.75E−04, respectively, indicating that soil PTEs around the oil production plants have caused serious carcinogenic risk to local children and adults. The CR values of children and adults showed that the CR values of Cr (6.33E−04) and Ni (2.64E−04) for children, and Cr (3.87E−04) and Ni (1.49E−04) for adults were all greater than 10–4. In addition, As, Cr and Cd all presented oral intake risk  > oronasal inhalation risk  > skin contact risk. In conclusion, Cr and Ni caused serious carcinogenic risk for children and adults in the study area, and oral intake was also the primary way of carcinogenic risk. The CRI statistics of adults and children exhibited that the CRI values of all PTEs were lower than those of children. The CRI values of the PTEs in adults and children under the three exposure routes were Cr  > Ni  >   > As  > Pb  >   > Cd. Among them, the CRI values of Cr and Ni in children and adults by oral intake were both greater than 10–4, showing a strong carcinogenic risk. It is noteworthy that the assessment based on total concentrations of PTEs in soil might overestimate potential health risks38. The above analysis revealed that both children and adults in the study area suffered from serious carcinogenic risks, and Cr and Ni were the chiefly carcinogenic risk factors. More

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    Marine subsidies produce cactus forests on desert islands

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    Response of soil viral communities to land use changes

    Characteristics of LVD dataset and assembled vOTUsThe land use virome dataset LVD was derived from 2.6 billion paired clean reads of sequences across 50 viromes of 25 samples with five types of land uses (Supplementary Data 2). A total of 6,442,065 contigs ( >1500 bp) were yielded, of which 764,466 (11.8%) contigs were identified as putative viral genomes through VIBRANT. Subsequently, putative false positive viral genomes were removed (see Methods section), and 27,951 and 48,936 bona fide viral genomes were retained from the 25 intracellular VLPs (iVLPs) and 25 extracellular VLPs (eVLPs) viromes, respectively. These genomes were clustered into 25,941 and 45,152 vOTUs for iVLPs and eVLPs viromes, respectively, in which the iVLPs and eVLPs viromes shared 11,467 (19.2%) vOTUs. Subsequently, they were merged and dereplicated, resulting in 59,626 vOTUs (Supplementary Data 3) for the following analysis. A total of 8112 (13.6%) vOTUs genomes were classified as complete, in which the median length of all and circular vOTUs were 25,183 bp and 45,511 bp, respectively (Supplementary Fig. 4).To explore the taxonomic affiliation of vOTUs in family and genus-level, a gene-sharing network consist of 59,626 vOTUs genomes from this study and 3502 reference phage genomes (from NCBI Viral RefSeq version 201) revealed 6009 VCs comprising of 37,224 vOTUs, of which 34,417 vOTUs were from LVD, besides 2794 singletons (2653 from LVD dataset), 16,056 outliers (15,833 from LVD) and 8492 overlaps (8061 from LVD) were detected (Supplementary Data 4). Of these, only 157 VCs contained genomes from both the RefSeq and LVD dataset (1864 viral genomes) (Supplementary Data 4). Most of VCs (1837, 30.4%) included only two members.At the family level, most of vOTUs were classified into Siphoviridae (712 by vConTACT2 and 29,671 (50.9%) by Demovir, tailed dsDNA), Podoviridae (610 by vConTACT2 and 9923 (17.6 %) by Demovir, tailed dsDNA), Myoviridae (485 by vConTACT2 and 5445 (9.9%) by Demovir, tailed dsDNA), Tectiviridae (50 by vConTACT2 and 10 (0.10%) by Demovir, non-tailed dsDNA) (Fig. 1). Besides, the Eukaryotic viruses Herpesviridae (159 by Demovir, 0.26%, dsDNA), Phycodnaviridae (120 (0.20%) by Demovir, dsDNA); the Virophage Family Lavidaviridae (15 (0.03%) by Demovir) were detected as well, but a majority of vOTUs were unclassified in genus-level.Fig. 1: The taxonomic assignment of LVD.Pie charts showing the affiliation of 56,870 vOTUs at family level assigned by script Demovir (a). and the affiliation of 1864 vOTUs at family level assigned by package vConTACT2 (b). Source data are provided in the Source Data file.Full size imageViral community structures differ across land use typesBray–Curtis dissimilarity of viral communities (median 0.9951) showed strong heterogeneity of viral communities among different sites (Fig. 2a). While, the Bray–Curtis dissimilarity (median: 0.5109) between paired viral communities of iVLPs and eVLPs from each site have a significant lower heterogeneity than inter-sites (Wilcox.test, p  0.05; Fig. 2b). Therefore, the paired iVLPs and eVLPs viromes from each site were merged for subsequently viral community analysis.Fig. 2: The macrodiversity of soil viral communities.a Boxplot showing Bray–Curtis dissimilarity of viral communities of intra-sites (between the corresponding community of iVLPs and eVLPs, n = 25) and inter-sites (between different sample sites, n = 300). The minima, maxima, center, bounds of box and whiskers in boxplots from bottom to top represented percentile 0, 10, 25, 50, 75, 90, and 100, respectively, the difference between different zones was tested using the two-sided Wilcox.test, ****p  More

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    Straw mulching for enhanced water use efficiency and economic returns from soybean fields in the Loess Plateau China

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    Coral community data Heron Island Great Barrier Reef 1962–2016

    Study site and field data collectionPermanent 1 m2 photoquadrats were established on Heron Reef in 1962/63, using 9 mm diameter mild steel (rebar) pegs, which were replaced over time. From the 1990’s, replacement pegs were stainless steel for greater longevity. Four sites were established, the protected (south) crest, inner flat, exposed (north) crest and exposed pools. Co-ordinates for each site are presented in Table 1, the layout shown in Fig. 2, and sites have been well described previously5,6. At each census, a 1 m2 frame divided into a 5 × 5 grid using string was placed over the pegs, and the quadrat photographed from directly above at low tide. From 1963 until 2003, a 35 mm camera and colour slide film were used. The camera was attached to a tripod affixed to the 1 m2 frame, and captured around 2/3 of the quadrat. The frame (and camera) were then rotated 180 degrees to capture the remainder of the quadrat. After 2003, a hand-held digital camera was used, with the entire quadrat being captured in a single image. Concurrent with each census, mud maps of each quadrat were hand drawn in the field, and all colonies identified in situ by someone with expertise in coral taxonomy.Table 1 Coordinates of the study sites on Heron Island Reef (WGS84).Full size tableFig. 2Quadrat layouts for each of the four sites respectively, noting that the north crest and north ridge have been treated as a single north crest site in previous publications. Underlining indicates original 1962/63 quadrats. Other quadrats were added in or after 2008, as indicated in the text. Contiguous quadrats are pictured bordering each other. Spacing between separate quadrats or groups of quadrats is not shown to scale. Note that up until 2005, NRNW was known as NR. The acronyms in each quadrat represent its name.Full size imageAt the protected (south) crest, a set of six contiguous quadrats were established in 1963 in a 2 × 3 arrangement parallel to the waterline, and about 420 m southeast of the island. This site is exposed at low tide, and was photographed once all water had drained off it. Images of quadrats A, C & E (the shoreward row) from 1963 to 2012 have been fully processed, and the data have been through QA/QC. Data after 2012 exist as images only. These quadrats form the basis of previous analyses1,4,5,6 for this site. Photographs are available for quadrats B, D & F, but apart from 2003–2010, have not been processed. In 2010, an additional two quadrats were established either side of the original six, leading to a 2 × 5 arrangement. Again, only imagery is available for these additional quadrats.At the inner flat, two pairs of contiguous quadrats were established in 1962, 44 m apart, about 70 m south of the island. This site is covered by ~10 cm of water at low tide, so could only be photographed on a still day. Imagery for this site is only available to 2012, after which the marker stakes appear to have been removed in a cleanup of the area. Images for one quadrat in each pair have been processed, but have not been subject to full QA/QC.At the exposed (north) crest main site, a set of four contiguous quadrats was established about 1100 m northeast of the island in 1963. An additional single quadrat (north ridge) was established 326 m to the east. Images from 1963 to 2012 have been fully processed, and the data have been through QA/QC. Data after 2012 exist as images only. In 2005, the single north ridge quadrat was expanded to 4 m2, and in 2008, both subsites were expanded to six quadrats in a 2 × 3 arrangement. These additional quadrats have been digitised up to 2012, but have not been through full QA/QC.The exposed pools are two individual quadrats about 5 m apart about 30 m north of the eastern (north ridge) exposed crest site. These are on the edge of a natural pool, and range from ~5–50 cm deep at low tide, and so could only be photographed on a calm day. Imagery for this site is only available until 2005, after which the marker stakes could not be relocated. Images from 1963 to 1998 have been processed, but have not been through full QA/QC.Retrieval of coral composition data from the photoquadratsProcessing of the images involved scanning the colour slides to produce digital images, and then orthorectifying each image to a 1 m2 basemap in ArcGIS (ESRI Ltd). The corners of the frame, and the holes for the string grid, were used as control points for the orthorectification. For images that originated as colour slides, each half of the quadrat was individually orthorectified to the same basemap, producing a single image of the entire quadrat (see Fig. 3). While contiguous quadrats were orthorectified individually, they were done so against a basemap containing all quadrats in the group, meaning that the resulting images can be easily merged to create a single image of the group. The outlines of all visible coral colonies ( >~1 cm2), and other benthic organisms such as algae and clams, were then digitised in ArcGIS to create a single shapefile for each quadrat for each year. Each colony was represented as an individual feature within the shapefile, and was assigned a unique colony number and species based on the mud maps drawn in the field. Colony numbers were consistent across years, allowing individual colonies to be tracked over time. If a colony underwent fission, the original colony number was retained for each, with the addition of a unique identifier after a decimal point. For example, if colony 35 split in two, the resultant colonies were identified as 35.1 and 35.2. If 35.2 later split again, the resultant colonies were identified as 35.2.1 and 35.2.2. If the colony overlapped the edge of the quadrat, only the area within the quadrat was digitised, and a flag was applied to indicate that only part of the colony was included (edgestatus = 1 in the data). Upon completion of digitisation, ArcGIS was used to calculate the area and perimeter of all colonies. While multiple census were conducted in 1963, 1971 and 1983, only a single census in each year has been processed. There are currently no plans to undertake further digitisation or QA/QC of this data set.Fig. 3Example orthorectified and stitched (prior to 2001) images from the NCNE quadrat, showing the effects of a cyclone that removed all colonies in 1972, and slow recovery over subsequent decades.Full size image More