Introduction to the Lecture

The relationship and mechanism between the ecosystem and environmental factors need to be revealed through long-term located monitoring. With the alpine ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau as the research target, this study reveals the relationship between the alpine ecosystem and global change factors on different temporal and spatial scales through long-term located monitoring, control experiments and remote sensing monitoring. The control experiments in the light of the typical environmental characteristics of the alpine ecosystem demonstrate that the ecosystem is controlled by temperature and precipitation, which challenges the mainstream view that temperature is the main concern before. Meanwhile, it has been found that the response intensity of the alpine ecosystem to CO₂ enrichment is higher than that of low-altitude ecosystems. This is the first research result in the world obtained through CO₂ enrichment experiments in a high-altitude region. Based on site control experiments, landscape flux monitoring and regional model simulation, this study has further confirmed that the alpine ecosystem is highly sensitive to global change factors. A series of research results offer a theoretical basis for alpine vegetation protection and promote local economic development.

Profile of the Speaker

Zhang Yangjian is a researcher at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Director of the Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Simulation, CAS. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2004. In 2016, he was selected as a leading talent in the "Ten Thousand Talents Program" of the Central Organization Department, and in 2017, he was awarded the "Outstanding Youth Fund" by the NSFC. Dr. Zhang’s research direction is ecosystem and global change, exploring the response pattern of ecosystem by remote sensing and ecological model, and disclosing the response mechanism through ground control experiments. He has published more than 100 articles in PNAS and other journals. Meanwhile, he has won the first prize of natural science in Tibet Autonomous Region, the Youth Science and Technology Award of the Tibetan Plateau, and the Outstanding Contribution Award of Wang Kuancheng's Western Scholars.