Source: School of Life Sciences

Presided by Professor Yu Shixiao, head of the Department of Ecology, School of Life Sciences, and funded by the National Natural Science Foundation, the key project “Pathogenic bacteria’s effects on the latitudinal and gradient pattern of species diversity of forest ecosystems” has achieved a research breakthrough. The research results were published in the Ecology Letters (SCI IF 15.3) once again, a journal ranked NO.1 in Ecology Impact Factor. This is the second time the team has published an article in the journal in four years. The paper’s corresponding author is Professor Yu Shixiao and the first author is Liu Xubing, the 2010 PhD student of School of life Sciences.

The study of species coexistence concerns the natural species diversity, which has been listed as one of the 25 most challenging global major basic problems by the SCIENCE magazine. Around the leading edge scientific problem, after years of observation and experiments, Professor Yu Shixiao and his team have been the first one internationally to prove that the natural genetic relationship of plant species has a constraining influence on the coexistence of species through control experiments. The research has provided evidences for the rich diversity in tropical and subtropical region and achieved world’s leading research results in exploring the formation mechanism of species diversity, an abstruse and complicated scientific problem. Marcel Holyoak, editor of Ecology Letters and professor of University of California, spoke highly of the outstanding contribution of the paper.