内蒙古师范大学

Dust aerosols across Central and East Asia influence regional climate, air quality, and biogeochemical cycles, yet the seasonal drivers of atmospheric dust loading remain poorly understood. We investigated long-term trends and controls of Dust Aerosol Optical Depth during 1980–2025 using Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 reanalysis and an interpretable machine-learning framework. Trend analysis revealed widespread intensification, with spring (March–May) exhibiting positive trends across 92.2% of the study area, whereas summer (June–August) showed a pronounced east–west contrast, including a 34.3% decline over eastern China. Seasonal Extreme Gradient Boosting models achieved high predictive performance, with an all-month model R2 of 0.807. SHapley Additive exPlanations identified antecedent soil moisture, particularly 1–3-month lagged topsoil wetness, as the dominant predictor, contributing more than 40% of total SHAP importance across all models. Temperature exhibited distinct nonlinear effects, with winter Dust AOD peaking at intermediate temperatures (270–275 K) and summer Dust AOD increasing sharply only above 305 K. Elevation further modulated dust loading by favoring lower-to mid-elevation basins and plateaus, while El Niño–Southern Oscillation (Niño3.4) exerted the strongest large-scale climate influence during spring. These findings highlight the importance of hydroclimatic memory and thermal extremes for understanding seasonal atmospheric dust loading and improving seasonal dust forecasting under climate change.

Based on the revised Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis was used to investigate the combinatorial effects of social, human, cultural, policy, physical, natural, and financial capital on herders' livelihood strategies in Chen Barag in the Hulunbuir Grassland, to identify the key drivers of herders’ adoption of a tourism livelihood. The results identify six differentiated livelihood configuration types. Traditional pastoral livelihoods are associated with resource-constrained configurations and high thresholds for tourism participation under ecological, market, and institutional conditions. Conversely, mixed livelihoods are associated with configurations involving productive resource release, locational advantages, cultural commodification, and intergenerational labour division, while governance tensions between institutional arrangements and diversified livelihood needs may create additional constraints. These findings highlight the joint importance of asset-related thresholds and institutional conditions in shaping differentiated tourism participation.

Abstract Inner Mongolia, situated in an arid and semiarid region, is characterized by a fragile ecological environment heavily impacted by frequent and intense droughts. The accurate assessment of ecological drought and identification of its drivers are crucial for drought disaster management in this area. In this study, we propose a novel ecological drought index, the kernel temperature vegetation drought index (kTVDI), which refines the traditional temperature vegetation drought index (TVDI) by incorporating the kernel normalized difference vegetation index (kNDVI) derived from MODIS data spanning from 2000 to 2022. We analyzed the spatial and temporal dynamics as well as future trends of ecological drought during the growing season in Inner Mongolia using Theil–Sen trend analysis, the Mann–Kendall test, and the Hurst index. This research also explored the correlations between the kTVDI and meteorological variables, such as potential evapotranspiration (PET), temperature (TM), and precipitation (PRE), on an image‐by‐image basis through partial correlation analysis. Additionally, it examines the impact of human activities on ecological drought through residual analysis. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to elucidate the pathways through which natural environmental elements and human activities influence ecological drought. Our findings indicate a general trend toward the amelioration of ecological drought during the growing season in Inner Mongolia from 2000 to 2022, with the highest incidence of breakpoints occurring in July. Spatially, the ecological drought conditions transitioned from mild wetness in the northeast to severe drought in the southwest. Temporal trend analysis indicated increased dryness in May, June, and August, whereas wetness trends were prominent in July, September, and October. Notably, the future spatial patterns of ecological drought may show reverse trends. Precipitation was negatively correlated with ecological drought across 89% of the region, whereas PET and TM were positively correlated in 42.2% and 51.5% of the area, respectively. Furthermore, human activities exacerbated ecological drought in western Inner Mongolia and mitigated it in the eastern regions. The SEM results emphasize that climatic conditions and human activities indirectly influence ecological drought through their impacts on the leaf area and productivity of vegetation.

With global ecological restoration advancing, afforestation plays a key role in providing ecosystem services and mitigating climate change. However, intensifying climate change and soil degradation challenge the long-term sustainability of plantations, particularly in nutrient acquisition and utilization. This study focuses on two representative tree species in the Saihanba Forest Farm in China: the cold-tolerant conifer Larix gmelinii var. principis-rupprechtii (Larch) and the fast-growing deciduous broadleaf species Betula platyphylla (Birch). The aim is to analyze their leaf carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) stoichiometric characteristics and to reveal species-specific nutrient allocation strategies and their environmental drivers. The results show that Larch exhibited higher C (477.29 ± 11.09 g kg–1) and P content (1.72 ± 0.12 g kg–1) than Birch (C: 461.87 ± 12.53 g kg–1; P: 1.49 ± 0.12 g kg–1), whereas Birch showed markedly higher C:P and N:P than Larch (P < 0.01). These patterns indicate a relatively conservative, P-enriched strategy in Larch and a more acquisitive, P-limited strategy in Birch. Soil and environmental factors explained 86.58

The precise synthesis of closed-shell superatomic clusters has unlocked their potential in catalysis and electronics, yet a deep understanding of their fundamental optical properties remains limited. Herein, we systematically reveal the size-composition-luminescence correlation of tetrahedral superatomic clusters using time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT). Our calculations reveal that these clusters exhibit high structural stability and tunable optical characteristics. Alkaline-earth metal clusters (Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba) show energy gaps ranging from 0.51 to 2.42 eV, with broad absorption from the visible to the infrared (547 2285 nm) and corresponding emission covering both the NIR-I and NIR-II regions (954 1814 nm). In contrast, coinage metal clusters (Cu, Ag, Au) possess narrower energy gaps (1.95 2.46 eV) and are largely confined to the visible and NIR-I spectral windows. Excited-state analysis further indicates that Cu20, Ag20, Au20, Mg4, Ca4 and Mg10 exhibit localized excitation character, whereas Sr4 and Ba4 demonstrate a charge-transfer excitation mechanism. Importantly, we identify a consistent red-shift in absorption with increasing atomic radius or cluster size. These findings elucidate the underlying structure–property relationships in superatomic clusters and provide a theoretical foundation for the rational design of tunable luminescent materials.