In response to ecosystem degradation from rapid economic development, China began investing heavily in protecting and restoring natural capital starting in 2000. We report on China's first national ecosystem assessment (2000-2010), designed to quantify and help manage change in ecosystem services, including food production, carbon sequestration, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, water retention, flood mitigation, and provision of habitat for biodiversity. Overall, ecosystem services improved from 2000 to 2010, apart from habitat provision. China's national conservation policies contributed significantly to the increases in those ecosystem services.

Recent expansion of the scale of human activities poses severe threats to Earth’s life-support systems. Increasingly, protected areas (PAs) are expected to serve dual goals: protect biodiversity and secure ecosystem services. We report a nationwide assessment for China, quantifying the provision of threatened species habitat and four key regulating services—water retention, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, and carbon sequestration—in nature reserves (the primary category of PAs in China). We find that China’s nature reserves serve moderately well for mammals and birds, but not for other major taxa, nor for these key regulating ecosystem services. China’s nature reserves encompass 15.1% of the country’s land surface. They capture 17.9% and 16.4% of the entire habitat area for threatened mammals and birds, but only 13.1% for plants, 10.0% for amphibians, and 8.5% for reptiles. Nature reserves encompass only 10.2–12.5% of the source areas for the four key regulating services. They are concentrated in western China, whereas much threatened species’ habitat and regulating service source areas occur in eastern provinces. Our analysis illuminates a strategy for greatly strengthening PAs, through creating the first comprehensive national park system of China. This would encompass both nature reserves, in which human activities are highly restricted, and a new category of PAs for ecosystem services, in which human activities not impacting key services are permitted. This could close the gap in a politically feasible way. We also propose a new category of PAs globally, for sustaining the provision of ecosystems services and achieving sustainable development goals.

The efficient removal of alkyne impurities for the production of polymer-grade lower olefins remains an important and challenging goal for many industries. We report a strategy to control the pore interior of faujasite (FAU) zeolites by the confinement of isolated open nickel(II) sites in their six-membered rings. Under ambient conditions, Ni@FAU showed remarkable adsorption of alkynes and efficient separations of acetylene/ethylene, propyne/propylene, and butyne/1,3-butadiene mixtures, with unprecedented dynamic separation selectivities of 100, 92, and 83, respectively. In situ neutron diffraction and inelastic neutron scattering revealed that confined nickel(II) sites enabled chemoselective and reversible binding to acetylene through the formation of metastable [Ni(II)(C2H2)3] complexes. Control of the chemistry of pore interiors of easily scalable zeolites has unlocked their potential in challenging industrial separations.

Gas-phase infrared photodissociation spectra of the microhydrated bisulfate anions HSO4¯(H2O) n , with n = 1–16, are reported in the spectral range of 550–1800 cm–1. The spectra show extensive vibrational structure assigned to stretching and bending modes of the bisulfate core, as well as to water bending and librational modes. Comparison with electronic structure calculations suggests that the acidic proton of HSO4 – is involved in the formation of a hydrogen bond from n ≥ 1 and that water–water hydrogen bonds form for n ≥ 2. The water network for the larger clusters forms hydrogen-bonded “bands” about the bisulfate core. The blue shifting of the SOH bending mode from 1193 (n = 1) to 1381 cm–1 (n = 12) accompanied by a dramatic decrease in its IR intensity suggests increased incorporation of the bisulfate hydrogen atom into the hydrogen-bonding network, the first step toward acid dissociation.

H5(+) is the smallest proton-bound dimer. As such, its potential energy surface and spectroscopy are highly complex, with extreme anharmonicity and vibrational state mixing; this system provides an important benchmark for modern theoretical methods. Unfortunately, previous measurements covered only the higher-frequency region of the infrared spectrum. Here, spectra for H5(+) and D5(+) are extended to the mid- and far-IR, where the fundamental of the proton stretch and its combinations with other low-frequency vibrations are expected. Ions in a supersonic molecular beam are mass-selected and studied with multiple-photon dissociation spectroscopy using the FELIX free electron laser. A transition at 379 cm(-1) is assigned tentatively to the fundamental of the proton stretch of H5(+), and bands throughout the 300-2200 cm(-1) region are assigned to combinations of this mode with bending and torsional vibrations. Coupled vibrational calculations, using ab initio potential and dipole moment surfaces, account for the highly anharmonic nature of these complexes.

This work demonstrates that the most stable structures of even small gas-phase aggregates of cerium oxide with 2-5 cerium atoms show structural motifs reminiscent of the bulk ceria. This is different from main group and transition metal oxide clusters, which often display structural features that are distinctly different from the bulk structure

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Infrared spectroscopic study of neutral water clusters is crucial to understanding of the hydrogen-bonding networks in liquid water and ice. Here we report infrared spectra of size-selected neutral water clusters, (H2O)n(n= 3−6), in the OH stretching vibration region, based on threshold photoionization using a tunable vacuum ultraviolet free-electron laser. Distinct OH stretch vibrational fundamentals observed in the 3,500−3,600-cm−1region of (H2O)5provide unique spectral signatures for the formation of a noncyclic pentamer, which coexists with the global-minimum cyclic structure previously identified in the gas phase. The main features of infrared spectra of the pentamer and hexamer, (H2O)n(n= 5 and 6), span the entire OH stretching band of liquid water, suggesting that they start to exhibit the richness and diversity of hydrogen-bonding networks in bulk water.