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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
For main sequence stars, the central nuclear processing generally has no effect on surface abundances. Later in the evolution, the newly synthetized elements may be revealed at the stellar surface by processes such as mass loss, convective dredge-up, overshooting, diffusion, rotational and tidal mixing, etc. The changes of CNO abundances are the most conspicuous and the easiest to observe spectroscopically; some abundance ratios like C/N, O/N may undergo changes by more than 102. On the whole, surface chemistry is a most powerful diagnostics of stellar evolution, model assumptions and nuclear cross sections.