Co-occurrence Patterns Research Articles

Plant compartment niche is more important in structuring the fungal community associated with alpine herbs in the subnival belt of the Qiangyong glacier than plant species

The plant compartment niche (i.e., the host plant provides various microhabitats for the microbial community, such as the rhizosphere, root endosphere, leaf endosphere, and phylloplane) and plant species play a significant role in shaping the plant-associated microbial community assembly. However, in the mycobiome associated with alpine herbs in the subnival belt research, little work has been done to assess the contribution of plant compartment niches and plant species to fungal community variation and to reveal the plant compartment niche differentiation of fungal communities. In this study, we quantified the fungal communities associated with the rhizosphere soil, root endospheres, and leaf endospheres of three alpine herbs (Rheum spiciforme, Eriophyton wallichii, and Rhodiola bupleuroides) in the subnival belt of the Qiangyong glacier using high-throughput DNA sequencing. Our results revealed that the variation in diversity and composition of the fungal community was predominantly shaped by plant compartment niche rather than plant species. Rhizosphere soil exhibited the highest level of fungal diversity and niche breadth, while the lowest level was observed in the leaf endosphere. The fungal community composition significantly differed across different plant compartment niches. Fungal co-occurrence networks of the root endosphere and leaf endosphere were more complex and showed higher centrality and connectedness than the rhizosphere soil. Moreover, we also found that the deterministic process governed the fungal community assembly, and the host plant exerts stronger selection pressure on the leaf endophytes in comparison with the root endophytes. The root endophytes are the primary potential contributors to the leaf endophytes, compared with the fungal community associated with rhizosphere soil. Further, the Pleosporaceae, Davidiellaceae, and Chaetomiaceae were significantly enriched and overlapped in two plant compartment niches (root endosphere and leaf endosphere). Collectively, this study reveals that the variation in the diversity and composition of fungal communities associated with three alpine herbs were primarily affected by plant compartment niches rather than plant species. Additionally, this study also reveals that the diversity, composition, co-occurrence pattern, and assembly process of fungal communities associated with three alpine herbs exhibited plant compartment niche differentiation. These results provide a novel insight into the community assembly and ecological interactions of fungal communities associated with plants in harsh environments.

Microbial survival strategies in biological soil crusts of polymetallic tailing wetlands

The role of biological soil crusts (biocrusts) in ecological restoration is dominated by microbiota. This has been extensively studied in arid ecosystems characterized by nutrient deficiencies and poor soil substrates, including metal(loid)-rich mining regions. However, in the prior study areas, water constraints obscured the toxicity and restriction of succession by heavy metals, which were essential for soil remediation in mining regions using biocrusts. Accordingly, in the current study, we characterized biocrusts from a typical polymetallic tailing wetland and performed pot incubation to evaluate microbial community succession and microbial co-occurrence patterns. Results showed that adequate water and heavy-metal stress produced thicker and more hydrophobic biocrusts than did arid conditions, promoting stronger microbial activity in tailing wetlands. Moreover, the bioinformatic analyses during pot incubation suggest three potential survival strategies. (1) Cyanobacteria variation improved the succession level of cyanobacterial crusts. Even under heavy-metal stress, succession from light to dark cyanobacterial crusts still occurred, with Coleofasciculaceae decreasing 63% and Scytonema increasing 59% compared with the control groups. (2) Keystone taxa variation maintained high inorganic nitrogen turnover. Organisms potentially capable of inorganic nitrogen turnover, including Chloroflexi A4b and SBR1031, maintained a high relative abundance accounting for 42% (15/36) of the keystone taxa. (3) Variations in the interactions among microbiota created closer-knit microbial networks. Compared with the control groups, fewer nodes (15.2%) maintained higher average clustering coefficient values (1.8%) through 14% more positive interactions in the groups exposed to heavy-metal stress at the end of the incubation experiment. This study provides insights into the distinctive survival strategies of biocrusts in metal-rich extreme environments, offering theoretical support for biocrust-mediated ecological restoration in humid metal-contaminated regions.

Decoding the effects of varied peer victimization forms on depression and anxiety among Chinese adolescents: An exploration through latent transition analysis.

This study aims to examine co-occurrence patterns of depression and anxiety among Chinese adolescents and their associations with various forms of peer victimization. We collected longitudinal data from 1005 middle school students using the Multidimensional Peer Victimization Scale, Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Then we conducted latent profile analysis, latent transition analysis, and logistic regression analysis. The results reveal the presence of three depression-anxiety profiles among participants: low depression-anxiety group, moderate depression-anxiety group, and high depression-anxiety group. As verbal and relational victimization increase, adolescents are more likely to transition to a higher level of depression-anxiety profile. However, an increase in physical and property victimization predicts a transition to a lower level of depression-anxiety profile. The diverse effects resulting from different forms of victimization exhibit gender differences. For boys, an increase in relational victimization made participants in the moderate depression-anxiety group more likely to transition to the high depression-anxiety group, whereas this effect was not significant among girls. This study is theoretically significant for understanding the link between depression, anxiety, and their influencing factors. It suggests that educators, while addressing verbal and relational harm in adolescents, should reconsider the potential impact of physical and property harm. Opportunities to transform negative events into positive ones should be explored. Educators should tailor their focus based on gender, with a particular emphasis on addressing relational harm among male students. This underscores the need for differentiated approaches to effectively support students.

Ridge with no-tillage facilitates microbial N2 fixation associated with methane oxidation in rice soil

Aerobic methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB) play a crucial role in mitigating the greenhouse gas methane emission, particularly prevalent in flooded wetlands. The implementation of ridge with no-tillage practices within a rice-rape rotation system proves effective in overcoming the restrictive redox conditions associated with waterlogging. This approach enhances capillary water availability from furrows, especially during periods of low rainfall, thereby supporting plant growth on the ridges. However, the microbe-mediated accumulation of soil organic carbon and nitrogen remains insufficiently understood under this agricultural practice, particularly concerning methane oxidation, which holds ecological and agricultural significance in the rice fields. In this study, the ridge and ditch soils from a 28-year-old ridge with no-tillage rice field experiment were utilized for incubation with 13C-CH4 and 15NN2 to estimate the methane-oxidizing and N2-fixing potentials. Our findings reveal a significantly higher net production of fresh soil organic carbon in the ridge compared to the ditch soil during methane oxidation, with values of 626 and 543 μg 13C g−1 dry weight soil, respectively. Additionally, the fixed 15N exhibited a twofold increase in the ridge soil (14.1 μg 15N g−1 dry weight soil) compared to the ditch soil. Interestingly, the result of DNA-based stable isotope probing indicated no significant differences in active MOB and N2 fixers between ridge and ditch soils. Both Methylocystis-like type II and Methylosarcina/Methylomonas-like type I MOB catalyzed methane into organic biomass carbon pools. Soil N2-fixing activity was associated with the 15N-labeling of methane oxidizers and non-MOB, such as methanol oxidizers (Hyphomicrobium) and conventional N2 fixers (Burkholderia). Methane oxidation also fostered microbial interactions, as evidenced by co-occurrence patterns. These results underscore the dual role of microbial methane oxidation – not only as a recognized sink for the potent greenhouse gas methane but also as a source of soil organic carbon and bioavailable nitrogen. This emphasizes the pivotal role of microbial methane metabolism in contributing to soil carbon and nitrogen accumulation in ridge with no-tillage systems.

Biotic and abiotic factors interplay in structuring the dynamics of microbial co-occurrence patterns in tropical mountainsides

Ecological interactions are important for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Particularly in stream biofilms, little is known about the distributional patterns of different taxonomic groups and their potential interactions along elevational gradients. Here, we investigated the bacterial and fungal community structures of stream biofilms across elevational gradients on Mount Kilimanjaro, and explored patterns of their distribution, diversity, community structures, and taxa co-occurrence. We found that fungal and bacterial richness were more convergent at higher elevations, while their community structures became significantly more divergent. Inferred network complexity and stability significantly decreased with increasing elevation for fungi, while an opposite trend was observed for bacteria. Further quantitative analyses showed that network structures of bacteria and fungi were more divergent as elevation increased. This pattern was strongly associated with shifts in abiotic factors, such as mean annual temperatures, water PO43--P, and stream width. By constructing bipartite networks, we showed the fungal-bacterial network to be less redundant, more clustering, and unstable with increasing elevation. Abiotic factors (e.g., temperatures and stream width) and microbial community properties (i.e., structure and composition) significantly explained the dynamic changes in fungal-bacterial network properties. Taken together, this study provides evidence for the interplay of biotic and abiotic factors structuring potential microbial interactions in stream biofilms along a mountainside elevational gradient.

Dimensions of Text Complexity in the Spoken and Written Modes: A Comparison of Theory-Based Models

In many studies, grammatical complexity has been treated as a single unified construct. However, other research contradicts that view, suggesting instead that the different structural types and syntactic functions of complexity features are distributed in texts in fundamentally different ways. These patterns have been documented in general corpora that include a wide range of spoken and written registers. One question that has not been fully addressed is whether grammatical complexity features are organized in the same ways in the spoken versus written modes. The present study tests the empirical adequacy of four competing models based on different theoretical conceptualizations of text complexity, comparing their goodness-of-fit in spoken versus written modes. The results show that text complexity must be treated as a multi-dimensional construct; dimensions that combine structural type and syntactic function provide the best account of the actual patterns of linguistic co-occurrence. To a large extent, the same complexity dimensions operate in both the spoken and written modes. Two of these dimensions—dependent phrases functioning as noun modifiers and finite dependent clauses functioning as clause-level constituents—represent the strongest co-occurrence patterns. In addition, these two dimensions operate in complementary distribution, in both the spoken and written modes. Overall, though, these two dimensions are shown to represent stronger co-occurrence patterns in the written mode than in the spoken mode.

Biogeographic patterns and drivers of soil viromes.

Viruses are crucial in shaping soil microbial functions and ecosystems. However, studies on soil viromes have been limited in both spatial scale and biome coverage. Here we present a comprehensive synthesis of soil virome biogeographic patterns using the Global Soil Virome dataset (GSV) wherein we analysed 1,824 soil metagenomes worldwide, uncovering 80,750 partial genomes of DNA viruses, 96.7% of which are taxonomically unassigned. The biogeography of soil viral diversity and community structure varies across different biomes. Interestingly, the diversity of viruses does not align with microbial diversity and contrasts with it by showing low diversity in forest and shrubland soils. Soil texture and moisture conditions are further corroborated as key factors affecting diversity by our predicted soil viral diversity atlas, revealing higher diversity in humid and subhumid regions. In addition, the binomial degree distribution pattern suggests a random co-occurrence pattern of soil viruses. These findings are essential for elucidating soil viral ecology and for the comprehensive incorporation of viruses into soil ecosystem models.

The multispecies microbial cluster of Fusobacterium, Parvimonas, Bacteroides and Faecalibacterium as a precision biomarker for colorectal cancer diagnosis.

The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) has increased worldwide, and early diagnosis is crucial to reduce mortality rates. Therefore, new noninvasive biomarkers for CRC are required. Recent studies have revealed an imbalance in the oral and gut microbiomes of patients with CRC, as well as impaired gut vascular barrier function. In the present study, the microbiomes of saliva, crevicular fluid, feces, and non-neoplastic and tumor intestinal tissue samples of 93 CRC patients and 30 healthy individuals without digestive disorders (non-CRC) were analyzed by 16S rRNA metabarcoding procedures. The data revealed that Parvimonas, Fusobacterium, and Bacteroides fragilis were significantly over-represented in stool samples of CRC patients, whereas Faecalibacterium and Blautia were significantly over-abundant in the non-CRC group. Moreover, the tumor samples were enriched in well-known periodontal anaerobes, including Fusobacterium, Parvimonas, Peptostreptococcus, Porphyromonas, and Prevotella. Co-occurrence patterns of these oral microorganisms were observed in the subgingival pocket and in the tumor tissues of CRC patients, where they also correlated with other gut microbes, such as Hungatella. This study provides new evidence that oral pathobionts, normally located in subgingival pockets, can migrate to the colon and probably aggregate with aerobic bacteria, forming synergistic consortia. Furthermore, we suggest that the group composed of Fusobacterium, Parvimonas, Bacteroides, and Faecalibacterium could be used to design an excellent noninvasive fecal test for the early diagnosis of CRC. The combination of these four genera would significantly improve the reliability of a discriminatory test with respect to others that use a single species as a unique CRC biomarker.

The Co-occurrence Matrix and the Correlation Network of Phytophagous Insects Are Driven by Abiotic and Biotic Variables: the Case of Canola.

Co-occurrence a correlation profiles are driven by different factors (exogenous and endogenous) and drawing a profile of association between species based on co-occurrence, without assessing how these species vary in terms of ecological niche can lead to wrong conclusions. The objective was to determine the co-occurrence and correlation patterns of phytophagous insects in canola crop and to evaluate how these patterns varied according to the crop stage (phenology-biotic) and sowing times (agricultural practice-abiotic). We found that the patterns of co-occurrence and correlation between species were reflections of population variations due to the phenology and sowing times of canola. Variations in the multi-species abundance matrix were influenced by mean air temperature and accumulated rainfall. The main species associated with canola in southern Brazil, in terms of abundance, were P. xylostella, D. speciosa, and N. viridula. These species were mostly negatively associated. When evaluating their population variations, we found that they explore different temporal niches, whether in terms of phenology or sowing times. Finally, we demonstrate empirically that despite being important, association patterns based on co-occurrence and correlation should be interpreted in light of the understanding of patterns of niche exploitation and temporal variation of species.

Dynamics of the soil microbial community associated with Morchella cultivation: diversity, assembly mechanism and yield prediction.

The artificial cultivation of morels has been a global research focus owing to production variability. Understanding the microbial ecology in cultivated soil is essential to increase morel yield and alleviate pathogen harm. A total of nine Morchella cultivation experiments in four soil field types, forest, paddy, greenhouse, and orchard in Shanghai city were performed to determine the potential ecological relationship between Morchella growth and soil microbial ecology. Generally, significant variation was observed in the soil microbial diversity and composition between the different experimental field types. The niche width analysis indicated that the bacterial habitat niche breadth was significantly greater than the fungal community width, which was further confirmed by a null model that revealed that homogeneous selection could explain 46.26 and 53.64% of the variance in the bacterial and fungal assemblies, respectively. Moreover, the neutral community model revealed that stochastic processes dominate the bacterial community in forests and paddies and both the bacterial and fungal communities in orchard crops, whereas deterministic processes mostly govern the fungal community in forests and paddies and both the bacterial and the fungal communities in greenhouses. Furthermore, co-occurrence patterns were constructed, and the results demonstrated that the dynamics of the soil microbial community are related to fluctuations in soil physicochemical characteristics, especially soil potassium. Importantly, structural equation modeling further demonstrated that the experimental soil type significantly affects the potassium content of the soil, which can directly or indirectly promote Morchella yield by inhibiting soil fungal richness. This was the first study to predict morel yield through soil potassium fertilizer and soil fungal community richness, which provides new insights into deciphering the importance of microbial ecology in morel agroecosystems.

Spatiotemporal Changes of Antibiotic Resistance, Potential Pathogens, and Health Risk in Kindergarten Dust.

The microorganisms present in kindergartens are extremely important for children's health during their three-year preschool education. To assess the risk of outdoor dust in kindergartens, the antibiotic resistome and potential pathogens were investigated in dust samples collected from 59 kindergartens in Xiamen, southeast China in both the winter and summer. Both high-throughput quantitative PCR and metagenome analysis revealed a higher richness and abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in winter (P < 0.05). Besides, the bloom of ARGs and potential pathogens was evident in the urban kindergartens. The co-occurrence patterns among ARGs, mobile genetic elements (MGEs), and potential pathogens suggested some bacterial pathogens were potential hosts of ARGs and MGEs. We found a large number of high-risk ARGs in the dust; the richness and abundance of high-risk ARGs were higher in winter and urban kindergartens compared to in summer and peri-urban kindergartens, respectively. The results of the co-occurrence patterns and high-risk ARGs jointly reveal that urbanization will significantly increase the threat of urban dust to human beings and their risks will be higher in winter. This study unveils the close association between ARGs/mobile ARGs and potential pathogens and emphasizes that we should pay more attention to the health risks induced by their combination.

Press portrayals of Saudi Women’s empowerment in the context of military enlistment

Media representations are susceptible to attitudes. This study examined how the press frames the attitudes of Western, non-Western, and Saudi newspapers towards employing Saudi women in the military, a topic which has formed a rich area of interest for the press between 2018 and 2023. To that end, a corpus comprising 29 articles (10,288 words) from both local and international publications was compiled, with the purpose of conducting critical discourse analysis. The study analysed corpus concordances both quantitatively and qualitatively seeking to identify attitudes generated through language and discourse, either implicitly or explicitly. Following Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach, the study identified keywords and co-occurrent patterns. It was found that news articles could be classified into three patterns of their representation of Saudi women empowerment: advocating, biased and neutral. This study offers a reflection on how the linguistic features of newspapers frame females and address female issues on diverse grounds.

Interactions of rhizosphere microbiota-environmental factors-pharmacological active ingredients of Eucommia ulmoides.

The composition, diversity and co-occurrence patterns of the rhizosphere microbiota of E. ulmoides were significantly influenced by environmental factors, and which were potentially associated with the contents of pharmacological active ingredients. Eucommia ulmoides is an important perennial medicinal plant. However, little is known about the interactions among microbiota, environmental factors (EFs), and pharmacological active ingredients (PAIs) of E. ulmoides. Herein, we analyzed the interactions among rhizosphere microbiota-EFs-PAIs of E. ulmoides by amplicon sequencing and multi-analytical approach. Our results revealed variations in the dominant genera, diversity, and co-occurrence networks of the rhizosphere microbiota of E. ulmoides across different geographical locations. Notably, available nitrogen exerted the strongest influence on fungal dominant genera, while pH significantly impacted bacterial dominant genera. Rainfall and relative humidity exhibited pronounced effects on the α-diversity of fungal groups, whereas available phosphorus influenced the number of nodes in fungal co-occurrence networks. Altitude and total phosphorus had substantial effects on the average degree and nodes in bacterial co-occurrence networks. Furthermore, the dominant genera, diversity and co-occurrence network of rhizosphere microbiota of E. ulmoides were significantly correlated with the content of PAIs. Specifically, the abundance of rhizosphere dominant genera Filobasidium, Hannaella and Nitrospira were significantly correlated with the content of pinoresinol diglucoside (PD). Similarly, the abundance of Vishniacozyma and Bradyrhizobium correlated significantly with the content of geniposidic acid (GC), while the abundance of Gemmatimonas was significantly correlated with the content of aucubin. Moreover, the bacterial co-occurrence network parameters including average degree, density, and edge, were significantly correlated with the content of GC and aucubin. The α-diversity index Chao1 also displayed a significant correlation with the content of PD. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions between medicinal plants and microbes.

Alterations in colorectal cancer virome and its persistence after surgery

Viruses are a key component of the colon microbiome, but the relationship between virome and colorectal cancer (CRC) remains poorly understood. We seek to identify alterations in the viral community that is characteristic of CRC and examine if they persist after surgery. Forty-nine fecal samples from 25 non-cancer (NC) individuals and 12 CRC patients, before and 6-months after surgery, were collected for metagenomic analysis. The fecal virome of CRC patients demonstrated an increased network connectivity as compared to NC individuals. Co-exclusion of influential viruses to bacterial species associated with healthy gut status was observed in CRC, suggesting an altered virome induced a change in the healthy gut bacteriome. Network analysis revealed lower connectivity within the virome and trans-kingdom interactions in NC. After surgery, the number of strong correlations decreased for trans-kingdom and within the bacteria and virome networks, indicating lower connectivity within the microbiome. Some co-occurrence patterns between dominant viruses and bacteria were also lost after surgery, suggesting a possible return to the healthy state of gut microbiome. Microbial signatures characteristic of CRC include an altered virome besides an altered bacterial composition. Elevated viral correlations and network connectivity were observed in CRC patients relative to healthy individuals, alongside distinct changes in the cross-kingdom correlation network unique to CRC patients. Some patterns of dysbiosis persist after surgery. Future studies should seek to verify if dysbiosis truly persists after surgery in a larger sample size with microbiome data collected at various time points after surgery to explore if there is field-change in the remaining colon, as well as to examine if persistent dysbiosis correlates with patient outcomes.

Aggregating knowledge and collaborative information for sequential recommendation

Sequential recommendation aims to predict users’ future activities based on their historical interaction sequences. Various neural network architectures, such as Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN), Graph Neural Networks (GNN), and self-attention mechanisms, have been employed in the tasks, exploring multiple aspects of user preferences, including general interests, short-term interests, long-term interests, and item co-occurrence patterns. Despite achieving good performance, there are still limitations in capturing complex user preferences. Specifically, the current structures of RNN, GNN, etc., only capture item-level transition relations while neglecting attribute-level transition relations. Additionally, the explicit item relations are studied using item co-occurrence modules, but they cannot capture the implicit item-item relations. To address these issues, we propose a knowledge-augmented Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) to improve the short-term user interest module and adopt a collaborative item aggregation method to enhance the item co-occurrence module. Additionally, our long-term interest module utilizes a bitwise gating mechanism to select historical item features significant to users’ current preferences. We extensively evaluate our model on three real-world datasets alongside competitive methods, demonstrating its effectiveness in top K sequential recommendation.

Differences of bacterioplankton communities between the source and upstream regions of the Yangtze River: microbial structure, co-occurrence pattern, and environmental influencing factors.

The source area of the Yangtze River is located in the hinterland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which is known as the "Earth's third pole." It is the water conservation area and the natural barrier of the ecosystem of the Yangtze River basin. It is also the most sensitive area of the natural ecosystem, and the ecological environment is very fragile. Microorganisms play key roles in the biogeochemical processes of water. In this paper, the bacterioplankton communities in the source and upstream regions of the Yangtze River were studied based on 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing, and their environmental influencing factors were further analyzed. Results showed that the upstream region had higher richness and diversity than the source region. The predominant bacterial phyla in the source and upstream regions were Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteriota. The bacterial phyla associated with municipal pollution and opportunistic pathogen, such as Firmicutes and Actinobacteriota, were more abundant in the upstream. By contrast, distinct planktonic bacterial genera associated with mining pollution, such as Acidiphilium and Acidithiobacillus, were more abundant in the source region. The co-occurrence network showed that the interaction of bacterioplankton community is more frequent in the upstream. The bacterioplankton community compositions, richness, and functional profiles were affected by the spatial heterogeneity. Moreover, variation partitioning analysis further confirmed that the amount of variation in the source region independently explained by variables of altitude was the largest, followed by water nutrient. This paper revealed the spatial distribution of planktonic bacterial communities in the source and upstream regions of the Yangtze River and its correlation with environmental factors, providing information support for ensuring the health and safety of aquatic ecosystems in the Yangtze River Basin.

Abstract B007: Reconstruction of cellular phylogenies and analysis of gene expression variation in single cells

Abstract In cancer, somatic mutations occur continuously, causing cell populations to evolve. These somatic mutations result in the evolution of cellular gene expression patterns that can also change due to epigenetic modifications and environmental changes. By exploring the concordance of gene expression changes with molecular evolutionary trajectories of cells, we can examine the role of somatic variation on the evolution of gene expression patterns. In these endeavors, reliable inference of the evolutionary relationship of single cells is a key step. However, single-cell sequences contain many errors and missing bases, which necessitate advancing standard molecular phylogenetics approaches for applications in analyzing these datasets. We first show our new computational approach (TopHap+) that integratively applies standard phylogenetic optimality principles and patterns of co-occurrence of sequence variations to produce more expansive and accurate cellular phylogenies from single-cell sequence datasets. We then present Multi-Omics Concordance Analysis (MOCA) software to jointly analyze gene expressions and genetic variations from single-cell RNA sequencing profiles. MOCA outputs cells and genes showing convergent and divergent gene expression patterns in functional genomics. Citation Format: Sayaka Miura, Sudhir Kumar. Reconstruction of cellular phylogenies and analysis of gene expression variation in single cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Translating Cancer Evolution and Data Science: The Next Frontier; 2023 Dec 3-6; Boston, Massachusetts. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(3 Suppl_2):Abstract nr B007.

Linguistic variation in supreme court oral arguments by legal professionals: A novel multi-dimensional analysis

This study uses the method of novel Multi-Dimensional Analysis to compare the discourses of justices, appellant’s attorneys, and respondent’s attorneys to provide a corpus-based description of linguistic co-occurrence patterns in their registers during oral arguments based on the extracted seven functional dimensions: (1) Instructive argumentation versus Informational production; (2) Elaborative exposition; (3) Concern with degree; (4) Concern with projection; (5) Narrative versus Non-narrative expression; (6) Impersonal expression; and (7) Stance-focused expression. Three profession-based legal corpora, totaling 32,107,839 words, were built using case transcripts from oral arguments between 1979 and 2014. The results show that justices are more argumentative, concerned with degrees, projection-, and stance-focused than attorneys. Attorneys are more informative, elaborative, narrative, and impersonal than justices. Among attorneys, appellant’s attorneys are relatively more informative, elaborative and impersonal, and less projection-concerned than respondent’s attorneys. This study has implications for MD analysis, courtroom discourse analysis, language pedagogy, and accounting research.

A Multidimensional Analysis of a High-Stakes English Listening Test: A Corpus-Based Approach

The Gaokao, also known as China’s national college entrance exam, is a high-stakes exam for nearly all Chinese students. English has been one of the three most important subjects for a long time, and listening plays an important role in the Gaokao English test. However, relatively little research has been conducted on local versions of Gaokao’s English listening tests. This study analyzed the linguistic features and corresponding functional dimensions of the three different text types in the Gaokao’s listening test, investigating whether the papers used in three major regions of China were differentiated in terms of the co-occurrence patterns of lexicogrammatical features and dimensions of the transcripts. A corpus consisting of 170 sets of test papers (134,913 words) covering 31 provinces and cities from 2000 to 2022 was analyzed using a multidimensional analysis wherein six exclusive dimensions were extracted. The results showed that there were meaningful differences across short conversations, long conversations, and monologues with regard to the six dimensions’ scores, and regions further had significant differences in three dimensions: Syntactic and Clausal Complexity, Oral versus Literate Discourse, and Procedural Discourse, while Time Period was not associated with any differences. Implications for language teaching and assessment are discussed.

Comparison of distinctive diversities, co-occurrence patterns and potential ecological functions of microbial communities in heterogeneous soil areas in typical subtropical forests, southeast China

Although microbes are crucial in ecological cycling in forest soil, the response of the network structure and ecological functions of these microorganisms to soil heterogeneity remains elusive. Here, we analyzed the composition and co-occurrence network patterns of microorganisms in heterogeneous soil areas and evaluated their potential ecological functions, taking the scenic area (SA) and nature reserve (NR) of Wuyishan National Park as examples. Our results showed that the soil properties of SA and NR could almost be clustered separately, and soil heterogeneity between them has been found. Prokaryotic communities in both areas were also divided and showed higher similarities individually than those of eukaryotes. The prokaryotic community composition in both areas was mainly affected by pH and ammonia, while the eukaryotic community composition was mainly affected by total carbon and the carbon to nitrogen ratio. Both the microbial network and ecological function network in SA were more complex than those of NR, while those of NR were more stable than those of SA. The keystone taxa of pro- and eukaryotes with important ecological functions were enriched in SA and NR, respectively. Moreover, significant discrepancies between SA and NR were found in the prokaryotic functions related to nitrogen cycling, sulfur cycling, and compound degradation. Our study illuminated that the soil heterogeneity in subtropical areas changed microbial community diversity, interaction patterns, and keystone taxa composition, and might further affect their ecological functions.