Rice planting patterns have changed dramatically over the past several decades in northeast China (NEC) due to the combined influence of global change and agricultural policy.  Except for its great implications for environmental protection and climate change adaption, the spatio-temporal changes of rice cultivation in NEC are not clear.  In this study, we conducted spatio-temporal analyses of NEC’s major rice production region, Heilongjiang Province, by using satellite-derived rice cultivation maps.  We found that the total cultivated area of rice in Heilongjiang Province increased largely from 1993 to 2011 and it expanded spatially to the northern and eastern part of the Sanjiang Plain.  The results also showed that rice cultivation areas experienced a larger increase in the region managed by the Reclamation Management Bureau (RMB) than that managed by the local provincial government.  Rice cultivation changes were closely related with those geographic factors over the investigated periods, represented by the geomorphic (slope), climatic (accumulated temperature), and hydrological (watershed) variables.  These findings provide clear evidence that crop cultivation in NEC has been modified to better cope with the global change.

Sex emerges out of a delicate dance between a variety of promale, anti-male, and possibly profemale genes. To investigate the role that sex-related genes play in sex determination and gonadal differentiation of fowl, we constructed a male-tofemale sex-reversal model of chick induced by diethylstilbestrol (DES) at onset of incubation (E0). The results of semiquantitative PCR showed that the expression of Sf1, the orphan nuclear receptor steroidogenic factor-1 gene, was put forward from E7d to E5d and up-regulated during E5-7d; the Dmrt1, the double sex and the Mab-3 related to transcription factor 1 gene, was down-regulated during E3-7d. Meanwhile, anti-Müllerian hormone gene (Amh) expressed at a similar level in the genetic females and sex-reversal females before E7d, while no expression products of the three female-specific genes Wpkci, Fet1 and Foxl2 were detected in male-to-female embryos. These findings suggest that the expression of some certain sex-related genes, induced by the exogenous estrogen during period of sex determination and gonadal differentiation, results in the male-to-female sex reversal. Moreover, high activity of Sf1 gene during E5-7d might be related to the profemale process, while low activity of Dmrt1 gene during E3-5d might be anti-male. The expression activity of Amh gene might only contribute to the promale process after E7d, however, it is possibly not an anti-female gene in chick embryos.