Search Results (171)

Our research explores the dynamic relationship between CO₂ emissions and four major influencing factors: foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth (GDP), renewable energy consumption (REN) and population (POP) in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and three large Asian countries—China, India and Pakistan, collectively referred to as LACs (larger Asian countries), from 1990 to 2022. The study has three main objectives: (1) to assess the short-run and long-run effects of GDP, FDI, REN and POP on CO₂ emissions; (2) to compare the adjustment speeds and environmental policy responsiveness between ASEAN and LAC regions; and (3) to evaluate the role of renewable energy in mitigating environmental degradation. Against the backdrop of increasing environmental challenges and divergent development paths in Asia, this research contributes to the literature by applying a dynamic heterogeneous panel autoregressive distributed lag (panel ARDL) model. Unlike traditional static panel models, the panel ARDL model captures both long-run equilibrium relationships and short-run adjustments, allowing for country-specific dynamics. The results reveal a significant long-run cointegration among the variables. The error correction term (ECT) indicates a faster adjustment to equilibrium in LACs (−1.18) than ASEAN (−0.37), suggesting LACs respond more swiftly to long-run disequilibria in emissions-related dynamics. This may reflect more responsive policy mechanisms, stronger institutional capacities or more aggressive environmental interventions in LACs. In contrast, the slower adjustment in ASEAN highlights potential structural rigidities or delays in implementing effective policy responses, emphasizing the need for enhanced regulatory frameworks and targeted climate strategies to improve policy intervention efficiency. Results show that GDP and FDI increase emissions in both regions, while REN reduces them. POP is insignificant in ASEAN but increases emissions in LACs. These results provide insights into the relative effectiveness of policy instruments in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy, highlighting the need for differentiated strategies that align with each country’s institutional capacity, development stage and energy structure. Full article

Understanding the biodiversity of aquatic communities and the underlying mechanisms that shape biodiversity patterns and community dynamics is crucial for the effective conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems. However, traditional survey methods often fail to comprehensively capture species diversity, particularly for low-abundance taxa. Moreover, studies integrating both metazoan and fish communities at fine spatial scales remain limited. To address these gaps, we employed a multi-marker eDNA metabarcoding approach, targeting both the 12S and 18S rRNA gene regions, to comprehensively investigate the composition of metazoan and fish communities in the Yujiang River. A total of 12 metazoan orders were detected, encompassing 15 families, 21 genera, and 19 species. For the fish community, 32 species were identified, belonging to 25 genera, 10 families, and 7 orders. Among these, Adula falcatoides and Coptodon zillii were identified as the most prevalent and abundant metazoan and fish species, respectively. Notably, the most prevalent fish species, C. zillii and Oreochromis niloticus, are both recognized as invasive species. The Bray–Curtis distance of metazoa (average: 0.464) was significantly lower than that of fish communities (average: 0.797), suggesting higher community heterogeneity among fish assemblages. Beta-diversity decomposition indicated that variations in the metazoan and fish communities were predominantly driven by species replacement (turnover) (65.4% and 70.9% for metazoa and fish, respectively) rather than nestedness. Mantel tests further revealed that species turnover in metazoan communities was most strongly influenced by water temperature, while fish community turnover was primarily affected by water transparency, likely reflecting the physiological sensitivity of metazoans to thermal gradients and the dependence of fish on visual cues for foraging and habitat selection. In addition, a co-occurrence network of metazoan and fish species was constructed, highlighting potential predator-prey interactions between native species and Corbicula fluminea, which emerged as a potential keystone species. Overall, this study demonstrates the utility of multi-marker eDNA metabarcoding in characterizing aquatic community structures and provides new insights into the spatial dynamics and species interactions within river ecosystems. Full article

The agricultural products trade network is essentially a complex adaptive system formed by nonlinear interactions between countries. Based on the complex system theory, this study reveals the dynamic self-organization law of the RCEP regional agricultural products trade network by using the panel data of RCEP agricultural products export trade from 2000 to 2023, combining social network analysis (SNA) and the temporal exponential random graph model (TERGM). The results show the following: (1) The RCEP agricultural products trade network presents a “core-edge” hierarchical structure, with China as the core hub to drive regional resource integration and ASEAN countries developing into secondary core nodes to deepen collaborative dependence. (2) The “China-ASEAN-Japan-Korea “riangle trade structure is formed under the RCEP framework, and the network has the characteristics of a “small world”. The leading mode of South–South trade promotes the regional economic order to shift from the traditional vertical division of labor to multiple coordination. (3) The evolution of trade network system is driven by multiple factors: endogenous reciprocity and network expansion are the core structural driving forces; synergistic optimization of supply and demand matching between economic and financial development to promote system upgrading; geographical proximity and cultural convergence effectively reduce transaction costs and enhance system connectivity, but geographical distance is still the key system constraint that restricts the integration of marginal countries. This study provides a systematic and scientific analytical framework for understanding the resilience mechanism and structural evolution of regional agricultural trade networks under global shocks. Full article

Understanding the processes that drive microbial community assembly is a fundamental question in ecology, with important implications for predicting community responses to environmental disturbances. River ecosystems are under growing pressure from human disturbances, jeopardizing their ecological functions. Here, we investigated bacterial and protistan communities along the Yujiang River using environmental DNA metabarcoding. Bacterial communities exhibited significantly greater alpha diversity and broader habitat niches compared to protists. Additionally, a negative correlation was found between alpha diversity and niche breadth for both groups. Protistan communities exhibited significantly higher beta diversity (Bray–Curtis distance) than bacterial communities, with species turnover being the principal factor driving the variations in both communities. Null model results indicated that heterogeneous selection primarily structured bacterial communities, while stochastic processes (drift) mainly governed protist communities. Redundancy analysis and Mantel tests showed significant associations between environmental factors (e.g., temperature and pH) and bacterial community composition. Moreover, the longitude of sampling sites was linked to spatial variations in both bacterial and protistan communities. Further analyses, including distance-decay patterns, variation partitioning, and multiple regression on distance matrices, demonstrated that bacterial communities were driven by both environmental and spatial factors, while protist communities exhibited a stronger response to spatial factors. These results enhance our understanding of microbial community assembly in river ecosystems and provide valuable insights for the conservation and sustainable management of freshwater systems. Full article

This study isolated and identified two novel Chinese bovine enterovirus (BEV) strains, designated as BEV-GX1901 and BEV-GX1902, from newly transported cattle with the diarrheal feces symptom. We also determined their complete genome sequences (7408 and 7405 nucleotides, respectively) and found both strains have a genome organization analogous to that of picornaviruses. To better understand these two novel strains, a detailed analysis was applied to both strains, including the time of the cytopathic effect (CPE) production, TCID₅₀ measurement, trypsin sensitivity test, ether sensitivity test, chioroform sensitivity test, acid and alkali resistance test, and heat resistance test. Our results showed that these two strains are different in physical and chemical properties. Our study also characterized that BEV-GX1901 and BEV-GX1902, both belonging to the BEV-E4 subtype, were closely related to the Australian strains K2577 and SL305, and the Japanese strain IS1 based on their genome sequences and VP1 region characterizations. It is speculated that this may be related to cattle trade and transportation. Additionally, the gene-by-gene or amino acid-by-amino acid comparison of the two strains found they have differences between their 5′UTR, 3′UTR, VP2, VP1, 2A, 3C, and 3D regions. Our results provide an important update of the virus’s presence in China and contribute to a better understanding of the distribution and characterization of BEVs in cattle. Full article

The spotted longbarbel catfish, Hemibagrus guttatus, a nationally protected Class II species in China, faces increasing threats from habitat degradation. Recently, the spotted longbarbel catfish has gained attention as a promising aquaculture species, not only for its premium flesh quality but also for its potential role in conservation through sustainable captive breeding programs. Ammonia nitrogen (ammonia-N) is a ubiquitous byproduct of intensive farming and serves as the primary environmental stressor confronting aquatic species. Elucidating the ammonia-N tolerance of spotted longbarbel catfish constitutes a critical prerequisite for its successful domestication, which is the aim of this study. We demonstrate that ammonia-N stress significantly decreases the survival rate of spotted longbarbel catfish and induces tissue damage, including gill lamella proliferation, hepatocyte blurring, and renal necrosis. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that ammonia-N stress promotes the expression of genes related to endoplasmic reticulum stress, heat-shock proteins, immune response, and apoptosis, while inhibiting antioxidant-related genes and Wnt-related genes. Enzymatic assays indicate that ammonia-N stress inhibits the activities of multiple antioxidant enzymes, including SOD, CAT, GSH, GSH-Px, and T-AOC. Microbiome analysis showed that ammonia-N stress altered the intestinal microbial community by increasing harmful bacteria (e.g., Vibrio and Aeromonas) and suppressing beneficial bacteria (e.g., Cetobacterium and Lactococcus). These findings highlight the comprehensive negative impacts of ammonia-N on the health of the spotted longbarbel catfish and provide a theoretical basis for optimizing aquaculture conditions to support the sustainable protection and domestication of the spotted longbarbel catfish. Full article

Amid declining fish diversity and human pressures in freshwater ecosystems, robust basin-scale assessments are vital for effective fisheries management. This study collated nearly four decades of fishery yields from the Pearl and Yangtze Rivers to identify conservation priorities in the Pearl River Basin. It introduced a novel cumulative effect indicator based on zeta diversity—a biodiversity pattern metric—integrated with cumulative effects analysis for management decision-making. The research employed a multi-site generalized dissimilarity model to examine the non-linear relationships between fish species composition (ζ_n) and human pressures, environmental factors, and geospatial variations across elevation gradients. The cumulative effect indicator, reflecting responses to anthropogenic stress when assessing ζ₂ (related to β diversity), helped evaluate basins for conservation or restoration needs based on their unique or homogenized biotic communities. The results suggest that ζ diversity in low-elevation sub-basins has a stronger filtering effect on ζ by human pressures than in mid- to high-elevation sub-basins, where community aggregation is more random. The impact varied with diversity aspects (nestedness vs. turnover) and zeta order. A negative correlation between cumulative effects and community uniqueness validated the novel cumulative effect indicator’s effectiveness for guiding restoration in the Pearl River Delta, potential fishing bans, and karst conservation. This approach offers a theoretical basis for prioritizing areas for freshwater fish diversity conservation and fishing restrictions in the Pearl River Basin. Full article

This review explores the development of energy storage technologies and governance frameworks in the Asia-Pacific region, where rapid economic growth and urbanisation drive the demand for sustainable energy solutions. Energy storage systems (ESS) are integral to balancing renewable energy fluctuations, improving grid resilience, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This paper examines the role of international organisations, including the United Nations, International Energy Agency (IEA), and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in promoting energy storage advancements through strategic initiatives, policy frameworks, and funding mechanisms. Regionally, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have launched programs fostering collaboration, technical support, and knowledge sharing. Detailed case studies of Japan, Thailand, and China highlight the diverse policy approaches, technological innovations, and international collaborations shaping energy storage advancements. While Japan emphasises cutting-edge innovation, Thailand focuses on regional integration, and China leads in large-scale deployment and manufacturing. This analysis identifies key lessons from these frameworks and case studies, providing insights into governance strategies, policy implications, and the challenges of scaling energy storage technologies. It offers a roadmap for advancing regional and global efforts toward achieving low-carbon, resilient energy systems aligned with sustainability and climate goals. Full article

This paper revisits the international finance trilemma by analyzing how different monetary policy objectives and exchange rate regimes shape the transmission of global risk shocks. Using a structural vector autoregressive model with exogenous variables (SVARX), we examine the monetary policy responses and exchange rate fluctuations of ASEAN+4 economies—China, Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong—to external shocks including U.S. monetary policy changes, oil price fluctuations, global policy uncertainty, and financial risk during 2010–2022. Economies are grouped according to their trilemma configurations: floating exchange rates with free capital flows, fixed exchange rates, and capital control regimes. Our findings broadly support the trilemma hypothesis: fixed-rate economies align with U.S. interest rate movements, capital control economies retain greater monetary autonomy, and open, floating regimes show partial responsiveness. More importantly, monetary responses vary by global shock type: U.S. monetary policy drives the most synchronized policy reactions, while oil price and uncertainty shocks produce more heterogeneous outcomes. Robustness checks include alternative model specifications, where global shocks are treated as endogenous, and extensions, such as using Japan’s monetary base as a proxy for unconventional monetary policy. These results refine the empirical understanding of the trilemma by showing that its dynamics depend not only on institutional arrangements but also on the nature of global shocks—underscoring the need for more tailored and, where possible, regionally coordinated monetary policy strategies. Full article

It is of great significance to clarify the impact of the rapid development of digital trade on China’s grain imports in order to enhance its efficiency and guarantee food security. From an import perspective, this article adopts a stochastic frontier gravity model and a trade inefficiency model to analyze the influence of global digital trade development on the efficiency of China’s grain imports and further estimates the potential for trade expansion. The main findings include the following: (a) Divergence in digital trade capabilities persists across nations. As countries advance their digital trade ecosystems, China’s grain import efficiency demonstrates corresponding enhancements. (b) Compared with digital infrastructure construction and digital trade competition intensity, China’s food import trade efficiency increases as the level of digital technology innovation improves. (c) China achieves the highest trade efficiency in grain import among the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and North American countries, while the greatest untapped potential lies in imports from South America. Accordingly, for different countries, it is necessary to adopt different strategies to enhance cooperation with the world’s major grain-trading countries in the areas of digital trade infrastructure construction and digital technology innovation, and to use digital trade to optimize China’s grain import trade chain and improve its efficiency. Full article

China leads global carp aquaculture (farming of species within the family Cyprinidae), producing 20 million tons annually in a sector shaped by favorable policies, infrastructure, and innovation. Carp farming in China is rooted in millennia of traditional practices and transformative post-1978 economic reforms. This review synthesizes the historical trajectory, technological advancements, policy frameworks, and sustainability challenges shaping China’s carp aquaculture sector. Historically, carp polyculture systems, developed during the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), laid the foundation for resource-efficient practices. Modern intensification, driven by state-led policies, genetic innovations, and feed-based systems, enabled unprecedented growth. However, rapid expansion has exacerbated environmental trade-offs, including nutrient pollution, habitat loss, and antibiotic resistance, while socioeconomic disparities, aging labor forces, and market volatility threaten sectoral resilience. Policy shifts since the 2000s prioritize ecological sustainability, exemplified by effluent regulations, wetland restoration, and green technologies. Despite progress, challenges persist in reconciling economic viability with environmental safeguards. Key success factors include long-term policy support, smallholder capacity building, vertically integrated supply chains, product differentiation, and adaptive management. With balanced policies emphasizing economic, social, and environmental sustainability, carp aquaculture can enhance domestic food and nutrition security. China’s experience showcases the potential of aquaculture to bolster food security but highlights the urgent need to harmonize productivity with ecological and social equity to ensure long-term resilience. Lessons from China’s model offer actionable insights for global aquaculture systems navigating similar sustainability imperatives. Full article

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) has emerged as a significant threat to global shrimp aquaculture, causing economic losses because of its rapid spread and high mortality rates. This study aims to elucidate the genetic and evolutionary dynamics of WSSV through a comprehensive genome analysis. Utilizing 27 complete genome sequences sourced from public databases, this study investigates the genetic variability, potential recombination events, and evolutionary patterns of WSSV. Our results identified multiple genomic deletions, 14 novel single-nucleotide polymorphism sites, and variable number tandem repeats across different strains, underscoring the virus’s genetic diversity. A recombination event between freshwater and marine strains highlights a complex transmission pathway, potentially facilitated by aquaculture practices. A phylogenetic tree constructed using ancestral genes suggests that WSSV originated in Southeast Asia and subsequently globally spread, influenced by both natural and anthropogenic factors. Genomic shrinkage of the virus occurred in time series, while the host’s viral infection induced transposon transposition and insertion into the earlier virus genome to provide a basis for genomic shrinkage. Our research emphasizes the importance of advanced molecular characterization and evolutionary models of the virus in understanding the spread of viral pathogens in aquaculture environments. Full article

Image steganography is a research field that focuses on covert storage and transmission technologies. However, current image hiding methods based on invertible neural networks (INNs) have limitations in extracting image features. Additionally, after experiencing the complex noise environment in the actual transmission channel, the quality of the recovered secret image drops significantly. The robustness of image steganography remains to be enhanced. To address the above challenges, this paper proposes a Mamba-based Robust Invertible Network (MRIN). Firstly, in order to fully utilize the global features of the image and improve the image quality, we adopted an innovative affine module, VMamba. Additionally, to enhance the robustness against joint attacks, we introduced an innovative multimodal adversarial training strategy, integrating fidelity constraints, adversarial games, and noise resistance into a composite optimization framework. Finally, our method achieved a maximum PSNR value of 50.29 dB and an SSIM value of 0.996 on multiple datasets (DIV2K, COCO, ImageNet). The PSNR of the recovered image under resolution scaling (0.5×) was 31.6 dB, which was 11.3% higher than with other methods. These results show that our method outperforms other current state-of-the-art (SOTA) image steganography techniques in terms of robustness on different datasets. Full article

Geosmin (GSM) and 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB), microbial-derived terpenoid compounds prevalent in aquaculture systems, impair fillet quality and disrupt physiological homeostasis in aquatic species by inducing oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation. Despite their significant impact, effective strategies for eliminating these compounds from fish tissues remain underexplored. In this study, we employed primer-mediated PCR amplification to identify strains that produce 2-MIB and GSM and evaluated the efficacy of Bacillus licheniformis strain BL23 (BL23) in suppressing S. thermocarboxydus (ST), a key contributor to terpenoid synthesis. Experimental fish were allocated to three groups (n = 30 per group): Group C (control, standard feed), Group T1 (BL23-supplemented feed), and Group T2 (BL23 + ST coculture). Probiotic concentrations in the tanks were maintained at 10⁶ CFU/mL under controlled conditions (30 °C). Tissue and aqueous samples were collected at intervals for the analysis of texture, growth performance, and terpenoid concentrations, with measurements in triplicate. Subsequently, B. licheniformis strain BL23 (BL23), which exhibits inhibitory effects against S. thermocarboxydus (ST) growth, was cultured and introduced into both fish specimens and aqueous systems. The outcomes of strain inoculation and cultivation experiments demonstrated the emergence of an inhibition zone surrounding the actinomycetes inoculated with BL23. The results from liquid coculture assays revealed a reduction in the concentration of ST from 10⁶ CFU/mL at 48 h to 10¹ CFU/mL at 72 h post-coculture with BL23 for an initial 48 h period. An analysis of fish tissue and aqueous samples confirmed that BL23 exhibited a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of ST, leading to a substantial decrease in GSM content (p < 0.05). However, no statistically significant improvements were observed in fish growth performance (weight gain, feed conversion rate) or meat texture quality parameters (hardness, elasticity). These findings present a novel approach to mitigating geosmin-induced off-flavors in aquaculture products, highlighting its potential utility in water management and aquatic food production systems. The results are particularly pertinent for the development of biological control strategies targeting microbial-derived odorants in recirculating aquaculture systems. Full article

Single-image plane segmentation plays an important role in understanding 3D indoor scenes, including applications such as 3D indoor reconstruction. In recent years, PlaneTR, a transformer-based architecture, has achieved remarkable performance in single-image plane instance segmentation. It has garnered significant attention from researchers and remains one of the most advanced algorithms in this field. However, PlaneTR has the following two major limitations: its ineffective utilization of line segment information within images and the high number of parameters. In this study, we propose an improved version of PlaneTR, named Spatial Prompt Learning PlaneTR (SPL-PlaneTR), to address these issues. Our approach effectively balances model complexity and performance. Specifically, to more effectively leverage structural information provided by line segments, we replace the original line segment’s transformer branch with a lightweight line segment prompt module and line segment prompt adapter. Additionally, we introduce spatial queries to replace conventional position queries, enabling the network to accurately localize planes across diverse indoor scenes. The experimental results demonstrate that our model, with fewer parameters, outperforms PlaneTR on both the original and noise-corrupted ScanNet datasets. Furthermore, SPL-PlaneTR achieves superior zero-shot transfer performance on the Matterport3D, ICL-NUIM RGB-D, and 2D-3D-S datasets compared to PlaneTR. Notably, our lightweight SPL-PlaneTR also surpasses several state-of-the-art algorithms in this domain. Our code and model have been publicly available. Full article