News
2026
This summer, our group had the pleasure of hosting two talented international students through the Global Research Immersion Program for Young Scientists (GRIPS). Over the past few weeks, Cecilia Vaz and Ellen Chan carried out independent research projects with great dedication and curiosity. Cecilia dove into the fascinating world of insect-pathogenic fungi interactions, and Ellen took on the challenge of investigating microclimate refugia for ants, examining how fine-scale environmental conditions might buffer ant communities from climate extremes.
I’m delighted to share the news that I have been appointed as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Animal Ecology (JAE) —- one of the flagship journals of the British Ecological Society.
Last week, our research group headed to the beautiful Bashang Grassland for a joint student conference with Dr. Wenyuan Zhang’s ZIEL group. It was a wonderful opportunity to step away from the lab, immerse ourselves in nature, and share the science we’ve been working on.
We are pleased to announce that our to-be Master student Chen Tian has received “Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis Award” from LanZhou University for his impressive work on fruit fly temperature sensitivity conducted at our lab.
We had a chilled sunset picnic with boardgames and pizza, then ended this perfect day with Stand-up paddle board. Jie, JiaYi, WeiMing and Anshan all had their first time paddle boarding and they all managed their solo trip! Bravo!
Jinlin just attended the Nanjing University-University of Birmingham Research workshop! Working with Dr. Shan Huang and Dr. Yuru Guan, we will dive into marine mollusks—super important for biodiversity and also for seafood/fisheries. Really excited to see where this pump-priming collaboration leads. Also picked up a lot of cool new perspectives on environment, climate, and sustainability!
This was our group’s first attempt at an insect biodiversity survey. The rain had just lifted, and the island was lush with spring vitality. We had an unexpected companion: a local dog that followed us through the fields for the whole day! But the ground was a muddy mess, and to make matters worse, our supervisor managed to run the three-wheel car into a roadside ditch. Memorable, to say the least.
Embrace the start of the Spring Semester in a fancy shopping “named after” the PI.
An unexpected warm and sunny day in the middle of the winter ought to be paired with a trip to our city’s beloved zoo, and a warm hotpot for dinner!
It’s a tradition to do a big clean-up to welcome the New Year. The CEE members re-organised and deep-cleaned our student’s office, Now we have a fridge, a snack/beverage station and a common room for meetings! Afterwards, we went for a 铁锅炖 to treat ourselves :P
2025
CEE lab and Ziel lab jointly hike in Qixia Mountain at its best time!
The CEE group is delighted to welcome two enthusiastic new students. To celebrate our team suddenly tripling in size, Jie, WeiMing, Chen, and Jinlin went out for a barbecue. We had a great time exchanging MBTI types etc. The food was so tasty that we forgot to take a group photo! We’ll be sure to get one at our next gathering in December.
Ge spent all her summer in the lab and Nanjing University Xianlin Campus to invent a easy and standardized way to evaluate the strength of species interactions (competition, parasitism and predation) and used it to understand the not-subtle difference that micro-climate had on species interactions. We will miss you, Ge, and we wish one day you will come back to our lab to further pursue your research interests!