Summary• A central aim of biogeography is to understand when and how modern patterns of species diversity and distribution developed. Many plant groups have disjunct distributions within the Northern Hemisphere, but among these very few have been studied that prefer warm semi-arid habitats.• Here we examine the biogeography and diversification history of Juniperus, which occurs in semi-arid habitats through much of the Northern Hemisphere. A phylogeny was generated based on > 10 000 bp of cpDNA for 51 Juniperus species plus many outgroups. Phylogenies based on fewer species were also constructed based on nuclear internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) and combined nrITS ⁄ cpDNA data sets to check for congruence. Divergence time-scales and ancestral distributions were further inferred.• Both long dispersal and migration across land bridges probably contributed to the modern range of Juniperus, while long-term climatic changes and the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau probably drove its diversification. Diversification apparently slowed down during climate-stable period of the Oligocene, and then speeded up from the Miocene onwards.• Juniperus probably originated in Eurasia, and was a part of the south Eurasian Tethyan vegetation of the Eocene to Oligocene. It reached America once at this time, once in the Miocene and once more recently.

As the highest and largest plateau in the world, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with its numerous endemic species, is one of the important alpine biodiversity hotspots. Only recently have the evolutionary histories and underlying adaptations of these alpine plants become clear, through research mostly based on testable experiments and analyses. In this issue, we collected a total of 13 papers related to such aims. In addition, we selected a few published papers to highlight the major findings in the recent past. We also outlined the outlook and direction of future research.

It has been suggested that rbcL and matK are the core barcodes in plants, but they are not powerful enough to distinguish between closely related plant groups. Additional barcodes need to be evaluated to improve the level of discrimination between plant species. Because of their well-studied taxonomy and extreme diversity, we used Chinese Lysimachia (Myrsinaceae) species to test the performance of core barcodes (rbcL and matK) and two additional candidate barcodes (trnH-psbA and the nuclear ribosomal ITS); 97 accessions from four subgenus representing 34 putative Lysimachia species were included in this study. And many closely related species pairs in subgen. Lysimachia were covered to detect their discriminatory power. The inefficiency of rbcL and matK alone or combined in closely related plant groups was validated in this study. TrnH-psbA combined with rbcL + matK did not yet perform well in Lysimachia groups. In contrast, ITS, alone or combined with rbcL and/or matK, revealed high resolving ability in Lysimachia. We support ITS as a supplementary barcode on the basis of core barcode rbcL and matK. Besides, this study also illustrates several mistakes or underlying evolutionary events in Lysimachia detected by DNA barcoding.

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This genetic structure is considered to be due to the combined effects of slow biochemical evolution, genetic drift, inbreeding and limited gene flow between populations. Based on these findings, strategies are proposed for the genetic conservation and management of the species.

The genus Primula is extremely diverse in the east Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains (HHM) in China as a result of rapid radiation. In order to overcome the difficulty of morphological classification of this genus, we surveyed three plastid regions (rbcL, matK, and trnH-psbA) and two nuclear markers (ITS and ITS2) from 227 accessions representing 66 Primula species across 18 sections, to assess their discriminatory power as barcodes. We found that ITS alone or combined with plastid regions showed the best discrimination across different infrageneric ranks and at species level. We suggest rbcL + matK + ITS as the first choice at present to barcode Primula plants. Although the present barcoding combination performed poorly in many closely related species of Primula, it still provided many new insights into current Primula taxonomy, such as the underlying presence of cryptic species, and several potential improper taxonomic treatments. DNA barcoding is one useful technique in the integrative taxonomy of the genus Primula, but it still requires further efforts to improve its effectiveness in some taxonomically challenging groups.

Abstract:The preparation and properties of nanocomposites, consisting of a poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) and an organophilic clay are described. The effect of organophilic clay on the crystallization behavior of (PHBV) was studied. A differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) was used to monitor the energy of the crystallization process from the melt. During the crystallization process from the melt, the organophilic clay led to an increase in crystallization temperature (T c ) of PHBV compared with that for plain PHBV. During isothermal crystallization, dependence of the relative degree of crystallization on time was described by the Avrami equation. The addition of organophilic clay caused an increase in the overall crystallization rate of PHBV, but did not influence the mechanism of nucleation, and growth of the PHBV crystals and the increase caused by a small quantity of clay is move effective than that large one. The equilibrium melting temperature of PHBV was determined as 186°C. Analysis of kinetic data according to nucleation theories showed that the increase in crystallization rate of PHBV in the composite is due to the decrease in surface energy of the extremity surface. The mechanical test shows that the tensile strength of hybrid increased to 35.6 MPa, which is about 32% higher than that of the original PHBV with the incorporation of 3 wt % clay, and the tensile modulus was also increased. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 93: 655-661, 2004