ORCID Profile
0000-0001-8430-915X
Current Organisation
James Cook University
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Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 29-06-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-02-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-018-0790-1
Abstract: Leaf traits are frequently measured in ecology to provide a 'common currency' for predicting how anthropogenic pressures impact ecosystem function. Here, we test whether leaf traits consistently respond to experimental treatments across 27 globally distributed grassland sites across 4 continents. We find that specific leaf area (leaf area per unit mass)-a commonly measured morphological trait inferring shifts between plant growth strategies-did not respond to up to four years of soil nutrient additions. Leaf nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium concentrations increased in response to the addition of each respective soil nutrient. We found few significant changes in leaf traits when vertebrate herbivores were excluded in the short-term. Leaf nitrogen and potassium concentrations were positively correlated with species turnover, suggesting that interspecific trait variation was a significant predictor of leaf nitrogen and potassium, but not of leaf phosphorus concentration. Climatic conditions and pretreatment soil nutrient levels also accounted for significant amounts of variation in the leaf traits measured. Overall, we find that leaf morphological traits, such as specific leaf area, are not appropriate indicators of plant response to anthropogenic perturbations in grasslands.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 05-09-2016
DOI: 10.1108/CAER-09-2015-0115
Abstract: The infrastructure investment is one important source of economic growth in China in the past three decades. However it is not clear to what extent such investment affects development in rural area. The purpose of this paper is to explore this impact both conceptually and quantitatively, and draw policy implications from the empirical exercise. The authors first describe the conceptual link between the transportation infrastructure and rural development, which motivates the empirical model. Then by utilizing an autoregressive distributed lag model, the authors estimate both the short- and long-run impacts of the transportation infrastructure on rural development, in terms of cereal yield and per capita net income of rural households. The authors find that investment in transportation infrastructure positively affects rural development in China. In terms of cereal yield, a 1 percent increase in the road infrastructure (road length) leads to around 0.05 percent increase in cereal yield in the short-, and around 0.19 percent increase in the long-run. In terms of the per capita net income of rural households, a 1 percent increase in the road infrastructure results in around 0.14 percent increase in the short-, and its long-run impact is not statistically significant. The positive impacts lend supports to promote investment in the transportation infrastructure. To this end, in addition to the government funding, the participation of private capital can also be promoted through a number of channels, such as the build-operate-transfer, public-private partnership, and establishment of infrastructure investment bank. This study evaluates the impacts of transportation infrastructure on rural development in China. Despite of the importance of infrastructure and rural development, there is a lack of study on the interaction between them. This paper intends to fill in this gap. In addition, implications drawn in this exercise can benefit policy makers not only in China, but also in other developing countries.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-12-2017
DOI: 10.1038/S41559-017-0395-0
Abstract: Bio ersity is declining in many local communities while also becoming increasingly homogenized across space. Experiments show that local plant species loss reduces ecosystem functioning and services, but the role of spatial homogenization of community composition and the potential interaction between ersity at different scales in maintaining ecosystem functioning remains unclear, especially when many functions are considered (ecosystem multifunctionality). We present an analysis of eight ecosystem functions measured in 65 grasslands worldwide. We find that more erse grasslands-those with both species-rich local communities (α- ersity) and large compositional differences among localities (β- ersity)-had higher levels of multifunctionality. Moreover, α- and β- ersity synergistically affected multifunctionality, with higher levels of ersity at one scale lifying the contribution to ecological functions at the other scale. The identity of species influencing ecosystem functioning differed among functions and across local communities, explaining why more erse grasslands maintained greater functionality when more functions and localities were considered. These results were robust to variation in environmental drivers. Our findings reveal that plant ersity, at both local and landscape scales, contributes to the maintenance of multiple ecosystem services provided by grasslands. Preserving ecosystem functioning therefore requires conservation of bio ersity both within and among ecological communities.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 03-08-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE16524
Abstract: How ecosystem productivity and species richness are interrelated is one of the most debated subjects in the history of ecology. Decades of intensive study have yet to discern the actual mechanisms behind observed global patterns. Here, by integrating the predictions from multiple theories into a single model and using data from 1,126 grassland plots spanning five continents, we detect the clear signals of numerous underlying mechanisms linking productivity and richness. We find that an integrative model has substantially higher explanatory power than traditional bivariate analyses. In addition, the specific results unveil several surprising findings that conflict with classical models. These include the isolation of a strong and consistent enhancement of productivity by richness, an effect in striking contrast with superficial data patterns. Also revealed is a consistent importance of competition across the full range of productivity values, in direct conflict with some (but not all) proposed models. The promotion of local richness by macroecological gradients in climatic favourability, generally seen as a competing hypothesis, is also found to be important in our analysis. The results demonstrate that an integrative modelling approach leads to a major advance in our ability to discern the underlying processes operating in ecological systems.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-02-2014
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE13014
Abstract: Studies of experimental grassland communities have demonstrated that plant ersity can stabilize productivity through species asynchrony, in which decreases in the biomass of some species are compensated for by increases in others. However, it remains unknown whether these findings are relevant to natural ecosystems, especially those for which species ersity is threatened by anthropogenic global change. Here we analyse ersity-stability relationships from 41 grasslands on five continents and examine how these relationships are affected by chronic fertilization, one of the strongest drivers of species loss globally. Unmanipulated communities with more species had greater species asynchrony, resulting in more stable biomass production, generalizing a result from bio ersity experiments to real-world grasslands. However, fertilization weakened the positive effect of ersity on stability. Contrary to expectations, this was not due to species loss after eutrophication but rather to an increase in the temporal variation of productivity in combination with a decrease in species asynchrony in erse communities. Our results demonstrate separate and synergistic effects of ersity and eutrophication on stability, emphasizing the need to understand how drivers of global change interactively affect the reliable provisioning of ecosystem services in real-world systems.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 06-09-2011
DOI: 10.1108/17561371111165761
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the technical efficiency of wheat and paddy rice processing in China. Understanding the level of technical efficiency of food processing helps to decide whether efforts are warranted to improve this efficiency. Studies on China's technical efficiency of flour and rice processing are scarce. This paper fills this gap. With a unique set of firm‐level survey data collected by China's State Statistical Bureau, this study adopts a stochastic frontier model to investigate the technical efficiency of flour and rice processing. The technical efficiency for both flour and rice processing is low in China, being only about 50 per cent. On average, rice processing firms have slightly higher technical efficiency than flour processing firms. It is also found that a significant proportion of firms experienced negative growth of technical efficiency during the time period of investigation. Each year, some 300 million tonnes of wheat and paddy rice are processed in China. Any small improvement in technical efficiency is translated into huge economic gains. Further, a tiny improvement in flour or rice output rate is equivalent to an enormous increase in food supply, contributing to China's food security. The paper confirms the need and potential to raise technical efficiency in China for wheat and paddy rice processing.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2019
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-07-2019
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 30-11-2010
Publisher: World Scientific Pub Co Pte Ltd
Date: 09-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-05-2019
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2014
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 24-05-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2012
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-10-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2012
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 24-08-2016
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE19324
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-01-2013
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.12078
Abstract: Plant growth can be limited by resource acquisition and defence against consumers, leading to contrasting trade-off possibilities. The competition-defence hypothesis posits a trade-off between competitive ability and defence against enemies (e.g. herbivores and pathogens). The growth-defence hypothesis suggests that strong competitors for nutrients are also defended against enemies, at a cost to growth rate. We tested these hypotheses using observations of 706 plant populations of over 500 species before and following identical fertilisation and fencing treatments at 39 grassland sites worldwide. Strong positive covariance in species responses to both treatments provided support for a growth-defence trade-off: populations that increased with the removal of nutrient limitation (poor competitors) also increased following removal of consumers. This result held globally across 4 years within plant life-history groups and within the majority of in idual sites. Thus, a growth-defence trade-off appears to be the norm, and mechanisms maintaining grassland bio ersity may operate within this constraint.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 21-03-2014
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-03-2014
DOI: 10.1038/NATURE13144
Abstract: Human alterations to nutrient cycles and herbivore communities are affecting global bio ersity dramatically. Ecological theory predicts these changes should be strongly counteractive: nutrient addition drives plant species loss through intensified competition for light, whereas herbivores prevent competitive exclusion by increasing ground-level light, particularly in productive systems. Here we use experimental data spanning a globally relevant range of conditions to test the hypothesis that herbaceous plant species losses caused by eutrophication may be offset by increased light availability due to herbivory. This experiment, replicated in 40 grasslands on 6 continents, demonstrates that nutrients and herbivores can serve as counteracting forces to control local plant ersity through light limitation, independent of site productivity, soil nitrogen, herbivore type and climate. Nutrient addition consistently reduced local ersity through light limitation, and herbivory rescued ersity at sites where it alleviated light limitation. Thus, species loss from anthropogenic eutrophication can be ameliorated in grasslands where herbivory increases ground-level light.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 03-2011
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-06-2018
Publisher: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Date: 17-08-2015
Abstract: Human activities have resulted in large increases in the availability of nutrients in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Although plant community responses to elevated nutrients have been well studied, soil microbial community responses remain poorly understood, despite their critical importance to ecosystem functioning. Using DNA-sequencing approaches, we assessed the response of soil microbial communities to experimentally added nitrogen and phosphorus at 25 grassland sites across the globe. Our results demonstrate that the composition of these communities shifts in consistent ways with elevated nutrient inputs and that there are corresponding shifts in the ecological attributes of the community members. This study represents an important step forward for understanding the connection between elevated nutrient inputs, shifts in soil microbial communities, and altered ecosystem functioning.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 02-12-2015
DOI: 10.1111/JBI.12451
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-12-2023
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-03-2014
DOI: 10.1111/GEB.12157
Publisher: World Scientific Pub Co Pte Ltd
Date: 26-05-2019
DOI: 10.1142/S0217590816500120
Abstract: This study examines the causal relationship between financial development, liberalization and economic growth through technological innovation channel in five South East Asia countries during the period 1980–2012, using a fully modified ordinary least square estimation technique. We find that technological deepening is driven by deepening in the financial system and financial liberalization rather than changes in a country’s market capitalization. We also find a negative effect from the financial openness, and a positive effect from financial deregulation.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2012
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-07-2015
Abstract: Terrestrial ecosystem productivity is widely accepted to be nutrient limited(1). Although nitrogen (N) is deemed a key determinant of aboveground net primary production (ANPP)(2,3), the prevalence of co-limitation by N and phosphorus (P) is increasingly recognized(4-8). However, the extent to which terrestrial productivity is co-limited by nutrients other than N and P has remained unclear. Here, we report results from a standardized factorial nutrient addition experiment, in which we added N, P and potassium (K) combined with a selection of micronutrients (K+μ), alone or in concert, to 42 grassland sites spanning five continents, and monitored ANPP. Nutrient availability limited productivity at 31 of the 42 grassland sites. And pairwise combinations of N, P, and K+μ co-limited ANPP at 29 of the sites. Nitrogen limitation peaked in cool, high latitude sites. Our findings highlight the importance of less studied nutrients, such as K and micronutrients, for grassland productivity, and point to significant variations in the type and degree of nutrient limitation. We suggest that multiple-nutrient constraints must be considered when assessing the ecosystem-scale consequences of nutrient enrichment.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-02-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2015
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 07-11-2022
Abstract: Accessing external finance for innovation is difficult. We study the effect of financial constraints on the probability of conducting process innovation, while also considering the role of past experience. We show a firm's optimal process innovation decision is a function of its previous decision and financial constraints, which naturally leads to a set of population moments for empirical testing with Australian microdata from 2006 to 2018. We find that if a firm did not conduct process innovation previously, financial constraints reduce its probability of process innovation by around 10 per cent. Whereas with previous process innovation, financial constraints reduce the probability by around 12 per cent.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-07-2014
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-01-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S10644-021-09375-Z
Abstract: This study examines the impact of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) on income inequality in Egypt over the period from 1975 to 2017. We find that a one per cent increase in FDI inflows (as a percentage of gross fixed capital formation) results in 0. 0188 reduction of the Gini coefficient. The finding is robust to different specifications of the empirical model and potential endogeneity of FDI inflows. The negative impact of FDI inflows suggests that Egyptian policymakers shall continue and strengthen the open-door policy, which has the added benefit of improving income inequality.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 14-07-2013
DOI: 10.1111/RADM.12009
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-07-0001
DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS8710
Abstract: Exotic species dominate many communities however the functional significance of species’ biogeographic origin remains highly contentious. This debate is fuelled in part by the lack of globally replicated, systematic data assessing the relationship between species provenance, function and response to perturbations. We examined the abundance of native and exotic plant species at 64 grasslands in 13 countries, and at a subset of the sites we experimentally tested native and exotic species responses to two fundamental drivers of invasion, mineral nutrient supplies and vertebrate herbivory. Exotic species are six times more likely to dominate communities than native species. Furthermore, while experimental nutrient addition increases the cover and richness of exotic species, nutrients decrease native ersity and cover. Native and exotic species also differ in their response to vertebrate consumer exclusion. These results suggest that species origin has functional significance, and that eutrophication will lead to increased exotic dominance in grasslands.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 29-08-2016
DOI: 10.1111/JVS.12450
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 14-01-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2013
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 28-11-2015
DOI: 10.1111/ELE.12381
Abstract: Aboveground-belowground interactions exert critical controls on the composition and function of terrestrial ecosystems, yet the fundamental relationships between plant ersity and soil microbial ersity remain elusive. Theory predicts predominantly positive associations but tests within single sites have shown variable relationships, and associations between plant and microbial ersity across broad spatial scales remain largely unexplored. We compared the ersity of plant, bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities in one hundred and forty-five 1 m(2) plots across 25 temperate grassland sites from four continents. Across sites, the plant alpha ersity patterns were poorly related to those observed for any soil microbial group. However, plant beta ersity (compositional dissimilarity between sites) was significantly correlated with the beta ersity of bacterial and fungal communities, even after controlling for environmental factors. Thus, across a global range of temperate grasslands, plant ersity can predict patterns in the composition of soil microbial communities, but not patterns in alpha ersity.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 29-01-2016
Abstract: Fraser et al . (Reports, 17 July 2015, p. 302) report a unimodal relationship between productivity and species richness at regional and global scales, which they contrast with the results of Adler et al . (Reports, 23 September 2011, p. 1750). However, both data sets, when analyzed correctly, show clearly and consistently that productivity is a poor predictor of local species richness.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2017
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 30-10-2019
DOI: 10.1108/JIMA-03-2018-0053
Abstract: With a fast-growing Muslim population and consumer income, the demand for halal products by Chinese Muslims has expanded strongly. However, literature addressing Chinese Muslims’ consumption is limited, and their demand for halal products is little understood. This study aims to investigate what affects Chinese Muslims’ demand for halal products, with a focus on halal personal care products. A survey of 500 respondents was conducted to collect cross-sectional data in northwest China. Data were processed and analysed with a logit model. Apart from faithfulness, reliability of recommendations, product price, product availability and halal authenticity are most important determinants influencing the purchase of halal products by Chinese Muslims. In this study, the focus is only on Muslims from China’s Northwest. Due to various constraints, the cluster and convenience s ling methods are used. The findings are invaluable for governments and industry bodies to form policies to better meet the burgeoning demand for halal products by Chinese Muslims. They are also very invaluable for producers and exporters who intend to penetrate the halal market in non-Muslim-dominant countries like China. Studies on understanding the needs of Muslims in non-Muslim countries are limited. Given the sheer size of the Muslim population in China, understanding their demand for halal products and influential determinants concerning such demand adds to the literature and helps the industry to better serve and capitalise on the growing market.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 14-12-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2015
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-08-2023
DOI: 10.1111/TWEC.13321
Abstract: We examine, both theoretically and empirically, how the presence of FDI affects product quality of domestic firms through worker mobility. Mobility of more productive workers from foreign‐invested to domestic firms lowers the cost of production and contributes to improvement in the quality of goods produced by domestic firms. Profit maximisation by firms yields a structural relationship between unobserved product quality and observed revenue, which allows us to identify the impact of FDI on product quality. We use the theoretical model to frame empirical estimation, where we propose a novel approach to correct for s le selection bias. Under some mild assumptions, a set of population moments are derived and estimated using firm‐level data from China's beverage manufacturing industry. We find that, on average, (i) working for foreign‐invested firms boosts the skill level of workers by 11.12 per cent and (ii) the probability that an FDI‐trained worker will move to a domestic firm is approximately 0.3. Estimation of the structural parameters shows that a one per cent increase in FDI leads to approximately 1.4 per cent improvement in product quality of domestic firms in China's beverage manufacturing industry.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2011
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-09-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2015
DOI: 10.1890/14-1902.1.SM
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-07-2009
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2019
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 03-10-2019
No related grants have been discovered for Sizhong Sun.