Shall we promote natural history collection today?-Answered by reviewing Ernest Henry Wilson's plant collection process in China.

Plant diversity exploration needs to be accelerated because many species will go extinct before their discovery and description, and many species-rich regions remain poorly studied. However, most contemporary plant collections prefer to focus on a specific group, which hinders the exploration and conservation of plant diversity. Therefore, we need an alternative approach to the dilemma at hand. The comprehensive Natural History Collection (NHC), which existed throughout the pinnacle of biodiversity exploration in the 20th century could be considered. We explore Ernest Henry Wilson's (one of the most successful naturalists in the 20th) plant collections in China as a case to illustrate the advantages of NHC and discuss whether NHC deserves to be promoted again today. From multiple sources, we gathered 19,218 available specimen records of 11,884 collecting numbers assigned and analyzed the collected species, the collection's nature, and restored four routes of his explorations. Results reveal that Wilson's specimens were collected from 28 prefecture-level cities and 38 county-level regions of 7 provinces or municipalities, they belong to 200 families, 1046 genera, 3794 species, and 342 infraspecific taxa, approximately 41 %, 22 %, 10 %, 5 % of Chinese plant families, genera, species, and infraspecific taxa respectively. The Wilson case study shows that NHC is particularly effective in emphasizing species discovery and conservation, recording ecological information, understanding a region's flora, and developing landscape applications. Therefore, we strongly advocate for the expansion of natural history collections in species-rich regions. Furthermore, we recommend the employment of specialized collectors, the enlistment of international cooperation, and the standardization of guidelines for future NHCs.

Alternative scenarios for urban tree surveys: Investigating the species, structures, and diversities of street trees using street view imagery.

Grasping information about street trees can assist urban environmental managers in quantifying and evaluating their costs and ecological benefits. Street view imagery has the potential for urban street tree surveys. However, few studies have been conducted on the inventory of street tree species, size structures and diversity based on street view imagery at the urban scale. In this study, we tried to conduct a survey of street trees in urban areas of Hangzhou using street view images. First, we constructed a size reference items system and determined that using it for street view measurements of street trees was comparable to field measurements results (R2 = 0.913-0.987). On this basis, we investigated the distribution characteristics and differences of street trees in Hangzhou using Baidu Street View and found that Cinnamomum camphora was the dominant tree species in Hangzhou (46.58 %), and the high proportion made urban street trees susceptible to ecological hazards. In addition, surveys conducted separately in various urban districts revealed that the diversity of street trees in new urban areas was smaller and less uniform. Additionally, as the gradient got further away from the city center, the street trees are smaller, the diversity first increased and then decreased, and the evenness gradually decreased. This study analyzes the use of Street View to investigate the distribution of species, size structure, and diversity of urban street trees. The use of street view imagery will simplify the collection of data on urban street trees and provide urban environmental managers with a foundation for strategy development.

Influence of view factors on intra-urban air temperature and thermal comfort variability in a temperate city.

Urban geometry is known to be one of the major factors in explaining the intra-urban temperature variations. A commonly used indicator to describe the urban geometry is the sky view factor. However, the existing studies have shown that the relationship between SVF and urban temperature is quite contradictory. This suggests that a single SVF cannot accurately quantify the urban geometry. For comparison, we here propose to use view factors, including sky, building and tree view factors (SVF, BVF, and TVF, respectively), to accurately quantify the three-dimensional urban geometry. Based on microclimate measurements conducted in Beijing Olympic Park and its surrounding urban environment in Beijing, China, the impact of view factors on intra-urban air temperature and thermal comfort was evaluated. Measurements were conducted along a selected path during hot summer days with clear skies and light winds by mobile traverses. The obtained results showed that SVF was positively correlated with air temperature during the day but negatively correlated with air temperature at night. BVF mainly played a warming role in both daytime and nighttime. Especially at night, BVF was the main geometric warming factor. TVF had a significant cooling effect during the day but did not have a negative effect at night due to reduced SVF. There was a strong point-to-point correlation between SVF and outdoor thermal comfort in the daytime. The mean differences in Mean Radiant Temperature and Physiologically Equivalent Temperature between shaded and unshaded sites were 12.0 °C and 6.8 °C, respectively, which suggested that providing effective shading is extremely important for improving outdoor daytime thermal comfort.