[Activity patterns and foraging behavior of Apis cerana cerana in the urban gardens in winter].

Bees and other pollinating insects are the important parts of biodiversity due to their great role in plant reproduction and crop production. To explore the role of city garden in native bees conservation, activity patterns, visiting behaviors and flowering plants with nectar or pollen were recorded in south Sichuan in winter. The results showed that, worker bees (Apis cerana cerana) were active to collect food out hive under suitable weather conditions, the duration of working was long. Peaks of the number of outgoing, entrance and foragers without pollen appeared at 14:00-15:00, and bimodal patterns were observed. While, peak of bees with pollen appeared at 11:00, and a unimodal pattern was observed. Time significantly affected the activity of workers. The workload of honey bees on nectar and pollen collection were different, just less than twenty percent foragers carrying pollen. Temperature and humidity also affected flights of bees to some degree, and bee activities showed similar patterns on different days. However, the activities had diverse characteristics in some time. Though a less number of plants were in flowering, most of them could be utilized by A. cerana cerana, and colonies could effectively get the food resource by behavior adjustment. In addition, visiting activities of bees on the flowers of main garden plants, such as Camellia japonica, showed obvious rhythm. Increasing the flowering plants with nectar and pollen in winter by scientific management of urban gardens would facilitate the creation of suitable habitats for A. cerana cerana and maintaining the wild population.

[Soil phosphorus form and fractionation scheme: a review].

As an essential element of plant nutrition, phosphorus plays an important role in the agricultural sustainable development and ecosystem balance. Adopting appropriate soil phosphorus fractionation scheme to study the forms, transformation, and availability of soil phosphorous is critical for understanding soil phosphorus supply and its losses. This paper reviewed the recent researches about the forms of soil inorganic and organic phosphorous, as well as their fractionation schemes and limitations. Hedley method, a widely used soil phosphorous fractionation scheme, gives attention to both organic and inorganic phosphorous forms, being available to understand the bioavailability and dynamics of soil phosphorus. The process of Hedley method and its application scope were described. A detailed discussion of its modification, the Tiessen method, was also presented.