As one of the global biodiversity hotspots, the mountains of Central Asia are home to a large number of wild fruit species. Although the hotspots are constantly being seriously affected by climate and land-use changes, effective assessments of the impacts of these changes for the dominant species of wild fruit forests, wild apple (Malus sieversii), have been limited. We compiled 8344 occurrence records for wild apple across its whole distribution ranges from field surveys and herbarium and literature records. After data thinning to reduce sampling bias, we used ensemble niche models to project current and future suitable habitats, examined the importance of environmental factors, and assessed whether current national protected areas (PAs) are effective in protecting the suitable habitats. We found that the distribution of wild apple is currently fragmented. Under future scenarios, it would shift 118–227 km towards high latitudes and ~200 m towards high elevations, losing nearly 27–56% of suitable habitats in the south, and gaining some habitats in the north. The increased temperature and expansion of cropland contributed to these shifts. Nevertheless, about 13% of the suitable habitats are covered by existing PAs and less than 25% of suitable habitats will be protected in the future. The cold spots for protecting intact wild fruit forests are located in Xinjiang, China and Kyrgyzstan. Overall, we provide a detailed evaluation of the impacts of climate and land-use changes on current and future distributions of wild apple in Central Asia. Considering that this species faces a greater risk of habitat loss in the south of Central Asia, we advocate developing effective in situ conservation strategies with long-term monitoring that will provide deep insights into the fate of wild fruit forests.

Climactic oscillations during the Quaternary played a significant role in the formation of genetic diversity and historical demography of numerous plant species in northwestern China. In this study, we used 11 simple sequence repeats derived from expressed sequence tag (EST-SSR), two chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments, and ecological niche modeling (ENM) to investigate the population structure and the phylogeographic history of Lycium ruthenicum, a plant species adapted to the climate in northwestern China. We identified 20 chloroplast haplotypes of which two were dominant and widely distributed in almost all populations. The species has high haplotype diversity and low nucleotide diversity based on the cpDNA data. The EST-SSR results showed a high percentage of total genetic variation within populations. Both the cpDNA and EST-SSR results indicated no significant differentiation among populations. By combining the evidence from ENM and demographic analysis, we confirmed that both the last interglacial (LIG) and late-glacial maximum (LGM) climatic fluctuations, aridification might have substantially narrowed the distribution range of this desert species, the southern parts of the Junggar Basin, the Tarim Basin, and the eastern Pamir Plateau were the potential glacial refugia for L. ruthenicum during the late middle Pleistocene to late Pleistocene Period. During the early Holocene, the warm, and humid climate promoted its demographic expansion in northwestern China. This work may provide new insights into the mechanism of formation of plant diversity in this arid region.

Hypericum acmosepalum belongs to the Hypericum genus of the Guttiferae family. The characteristic components in Hypericum are mainly a series of polycyclic polyprenylated acylphloroglucinols (PPAPs), flavonoids, and xanthones. Among them, the PPAPs have received much attention due to their novel structures and diverse pharmacological activities and have become hot spots in organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry. However, there are few reports about the chemical constituents of Hypericum acmosepalum at present, especially the PPAPs. This research is dedicated to the study of the air-dried aerial parts of Hypericum acmosepalum, which were extracted with 95% EtOH under reflux, then suspended and successively partitioned with petroleum ether and ethyl acetate. Five PPAP derivatives were obtained using various chromatographic techniques, and their structures were determined by NMR spectroscopic data, including two new phloroglucinol derivatives, hyperacmosin A (1) and hyperacmosin B (2). Those compounds were evaluated for their neuroprotective effect using two models.

Lycium ruthenicum is a precious desert plant with high medicinal and ecological values. It contains rich anthocyanins, which are safe natural pigments and could be used for natural food colorants. In this study, the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of L. ruthenicum was assembled on the basis of next generation sequencing. The whole genome is 154,996 bp in length, including two single copy regions (LSC: 85,993 bp and SSC: 18,213 bp) and two inverted repeat regions (IR: 25,395 bp). The overall G + C content of the genome is 37.9%. The cp genome consists of 111 unique genes, including 30 tRNA genes, 4 rRNA genes and 77 protein-coding genes. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that L. ruthenicum is closely clustered with Atropa belladonna, Przewalskia tangutica, and Scopolia parviflora.