Toponyms reflect the multifaceted relationship between humans and nature, recording and transmitting important cultural information. A toponymic cultural landscape (TCL) is the comprehensive embodiment of the cultural connotations and landscape significance carried by toponyms, reflecting various factors such as regional culture, historical memory, and social values. Wuhan, as the hinterland of Jing-Chu culture, carries a profound geo-culture and brings together numerous toponymic cultural heritages. Studying the spatial distribution characteristics of Wuhan’s toponymic cultural heritage and their association with landscape elements is of great significance in promoting the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage and realizing the orderly continuation of local culture, and it also confers deeper cultural connotations and local characteristics to the process of landscape characterization. This study analyzes 3638 toponyms in Wuhan as the research objects, utilizing geospatial analysis methods, including kernel density analysis, standard deviation ellipse analysis, and average nearest neighbor analysis, to visualize the spatial distribution of Wuhan’s TCL. It further combines these methods with the optimal parameter geographic detector (OPGD) model to explore the influence of landscape elements on the spatial distribution of different types of toponyms and their interaction effects. The results show the following: (1) The TCL of Wuhan is divided into two basic types, the natural landscape (61.16%) and the humanistic landscape (41.37%), of which hydrological-related toponyms occupy a significant proportion, reaching 35.02% of the total number of toponyms in Wuhan. (2) The distribution of Wuhan’s TCL is characterized by aggregation, mostly in the core area of the city, with the Yangtze River as the main axis, and the density of the spatial distribution of humanistic landscape toponyms varies greatly. (3) The results of a single-factor analysis show that construction land (X2) is an important influencing factor in both natural and humanistic landscape toponyms, which indicates the central role of human activities in the formation of toponyms. (4) The explanatory power of the interaction effect of two factors on the spatial differentiation of Wuhan’s TCL is stronger than that of the single factors, which suggests that the spatial differentiation characteristics of the TCL of Wuhan are formed under the joint influence of the respective variables.
2 December 2025 in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry
Root hairs are crucial for nutrient acquisition and exhibit high developmental plasticity in response to external nutrient availability. However, the specific root hair responses and mechanisms that integrate external nitrogen (N)-limitation signals into the root hair development remain poorly understood. This study revealed that under N deficiency, a set of genes associated with root hair development and ethylene responses was markedly upregulated in Arabidopsis roots. On a molecular level, the transcriptional activity of ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE 3 (EIN3), a master transcription factor of ethylene signaling, was augmented in the root vascular tissues under N deficiency, as shown by the 5×EBS:GUS staining. Further research using the ethylene-insensitive mutant ein3-1eil1-1 exhibited significantly reduced root hair length under low-N conditions. The inhibitory effect was further confirmed by ethylene synthesis inhibitor aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG). We also found that low nitrate significantly enriched ROS-related metabolic processes. Subsequent functional analyses revealed that the resulted ROS is specifically required for root hair elongation. Crucially, we demonstrate that ROS accumulation is required for the ethylene-dependent growth of root hairs under N deficiency. Taken together, these results suggest that N deficiency triggers a signaling cascade involving both ethylene and ROS to regulate root hair elongation, thereby enhancing the plant's capacity for nutrient acquisition.