News
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2026-09-06Topographic decoupling of tree-mortality disturbances: contrasting ecological selection pressures on ridges and in valleys drive divergent soil organic carbon fatesTopography spatially decouples the canopy-opening and detrital-legacy effects of tree mortality, creating distinct pressures on soil microbes that drive soil carbon toward contrasting fates through divergent microbial strategies. Climate-driven increases in tree mortality threaten the storage and stability of soil organic carbon (SOC) and, ultimately, the persistence of forest carbon sinks. Canopy-opening and detrital-legacy effects are two common ecological consequences of tree mortality. However, these effects often co-occur and vary substantially in intensity and dura...Read More -
2026-09-06Makes Significant Progress in Reshaping the Growth Habits of Goji BerryResearchers from the South China Botanical Garden have successfully reprogrammed the sprawling, indeterminate growth habit of goji berry into a compact, determinate architecture using CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology. By knocking out two key genes, LbSP1 and LbSP5G1, the team achieved synchronized flowering and fruiting, with the double-mutan... Goji berry (Lycium barbarum L.) is a perennial woody cash crop of high nutritional and medicinal value, boasting prominent industrial significance. However, its typical indeterminate inflorescence habit has become a major bottleneck constraining the industry's development. This trait causes goji branches to continuously sprout, bloom, and bear f...Read More -
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2026-09-02Two new national second-class protected wild plants discovered in Guangdong: Ormosia yangjiangensis and Ormosia taishanensisTwo new Ormosiaspecies — O. yangjiangensis(Endangered, <500 mature individuals) and O. taishanensis(Critically Endangered, <100 mature individuals) — were discovered in the Greater Bay Area and automatically became national second-class protected plants upon publication. Misidentified for decades due to reliance on leaves and dry pods, the stu... "Red berries grow in southern land, how many spring branches hold?" The red beans described by WANG Wei in his poem have carried the longing of Chinese people for thousands of years. Today, right in the "southern land" mentioned in the poem—the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area—a research team has unveiled the mystery of two new speci...Read More -
2026-08-21Study: Forest Trees Do Little to Acclimate to Prolonged DroughtA global analysis of 40 throughfall reduction experiments found no evidence of physiological acclimation to prolonged drought in forest trees. Despite largely stable hydraulic and photosynthetic capacities, drought narrowed hydraulic safety margins, raising concerns about the fate of forests. Figure. A rainfall reduction plot used to simulate drought in a temperate forest in Baotianman, Henan, China.（CHEN Zhicheng）Forests support much of the world’s biodiversity and play a vital role in regulating Earth’s climate, but they are increasingly exposed to drought. To understand the potential consequences of drought, a key question is ...Read More -
2026-08-21Scientists Unlock “Ancestral Code” of Banana FamilyThe research team generated a telomere-to-telomere (T2T), gap-free genome assembly of the ornamental banana Musa exotica and, by integrating comparative genomic analyses, reconstructed the ancestral Musaceae karyotype (AMK, n = 17), revealing the stepwise evolution of extant n = 11, 10, and 9 chromosome complements through rearrangements. Furthe... Scientists have recently reconstructed the ancestral karyotype of the banana family, revealing how chromosome numbers decreased stepwise from 17 to 9–11 over evolutionary time.The study was led by scientists from the South China Botanical Garden (SCBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with researchers from Sichuan Univ...Read More -
2026-08-20Cinnamomum fasciculatum (Lauraceae), a new species from Guangdong, ChinaA new species, Cinnamomum fasciculatum S.W.Deng & R.J.Wang, was discovered in Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, China and described based on morphological and molecular evidence. The most distinctive feature of C. fasciculatum is its inflorescence structure: several thyrsoid corymbiformly arranged in the axils of cataphylls below the terminal vegeta... The genus Cinnamomum Schaeff. (Lauraceae) comprises approximately 250 species widely distributed from tropical and subtropical Asia to the western Pacific. Traditionally, Cinnamomum s.l. is divided into sect. Camphora Meisn. (ca. 20 species) and sect. Cinnamomum (ca. 230 species). Sect. Camphora is distinguished by its alternate, pinnately veine...Read More -
2026-08-10Population History, Not Age, Determines the Genomic Importance of Ancient TreesA genomic study of 147 ancient, wild and cultivated Chinese swamp cypress (Glyptostrobus pensilis) trees shows that the evolutionary importance of ancient trees depends more on population history than on age alone. Ancient trees—those that are remarkably old for their species—are declining worldwide, raising concerns about the loss of the ecological and evolutionary history they represent. Their exceptional longevity has long encouraged the idea that they act as genetic reservoirs, preserving variation that may have been lost from younger populations. Bu...Read More