GCEP Conference

Please contact us directly for registration (see contact information below)

About

It is now widely accepted that we currently live in the Anthropocene epoch, which is characterized by a multitude of human caused environmental changes. Some of these global changes and their ecological consequences for plants have been studied already for several decades (e.g. climate change, biological invasions and eutrophication), and general patterns have started to emerge. Other global changes have started to receive research attention only recently (e.g. light pollution, plastic pollution), and provide a research agenda for the coming years. In this conference organized by Taizhou University, we will bring together world-leading experts on current and emergent topics in global change ecology of plants. We therefore warmly welcome scientists and students working on any aspect of global change ecology. We hope for fruitful and stimulating discussions that will contribute to a better integration of the different topics and methods in this important field of research.

Organizing Committee

Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation, Taizhou University

Zhejiang Provincial Academician Expert Workstation, Taizhou University

School of Advanced Study, Taizhou University

Doctor Solidarity of Taizhou University

Botanical Society of Zhejiang Province

Mark van Kleunen

Junmin Li

Caroline Brunel

Robin Pouteau

Jiang Wang

Keynote speakers

Ding Jianqing (University of Henan, China)

Biological invasions in China

Ding Jianqing is an ecologist working on a wide range of topics in invasion ecology. He is particularly interested in: (1) the mechanisms of biological invasions and their ecological security effect; (2) plant-insect interactions and their evolution; (3) catastrophe-mechanisms of major pests in agriculture and forestry, and their ecological control. Ding Jianqing is professor of ecology at the University of Henan in China (http://bio.henu.edu.cn/info/1014/2178.htm).

Mark van Kleunen (University of Konstanz, Germany & Taizhou University, China)

The ecology and evolution of alien plants

Mark van Kleunen is an evolutionary plant ecologist working on a wide range of topics in plant ecology and evolution. He is highly interested in how global environmental changes affect the evolution of species, their interactions and ultimately their distributions. At the conference, he will talk about the ecology and evolution of alien plants. Mark van Kleunen is professor of ecology at the University of Konstanz (Germany; http://cms.uni-konstanz.de/vkleunen/) and professor of invasion ecology at the University of Taizhou (China; https://www.invasionecologylab.com/).

Eva Knop (University of Bern, Switzerland)

Light pollution

Eva Knop is a community ecologist testing principles and mechanisms structuring biodiversity, species interactions, and ecosystem functioning, from the local to the global scale. She has a strong interest in how global change affects biodiversity and community processes, and what the ecological and evolutionary consequences are. At the conference, she will talk about the consequences of artificial light at night for species interactions and ecosystem functioning. Eva Knop is lecturer at the University of Bern (Switzerland; http://www.iee.unibe.ch/about_us/team/persons/evaknop/pd_dr_knop_eva/index_eng.html), affiliated member of the URPP Global Change and Biodiversity of the University of Zürich (Switzerland; https://www.gcb.uzh.ch/en/aboutus/AffiliatedMembers.html), and group leader at the Swiss centre of excellence for agricultural research (Switzerland; https://www.agroscope.admin.ch/agroscope/en/home.html).

Ayub M. O. Oduor (The Technical University of Kenya, Kenya)

Evolutionary response to global change

Ayub Oduor is based at the Department of Applied and Technical Biology of the Technical University of Kenya. He has broad research interests in ecology and evolution. He conducts research on such topic as: 1) ecological and evolutionary mechanisms underlying invasiveness of alien plant species; 2) challenges of habitat fragmentation and global change for plant populations; 3) ecological and evolutionary responses of plants to global environmental change; 4) evolution of local adaptation to biotic and abiotic stress; and 5) co-evolution of plant-herbivore interactions.

Wim van der Putten (Netherlands Institute of Ecology, the Netherlands)

Climate warming-induced plant range shifts from an aboveground-belowground perspective

Wim van der Putten is head of the Terrestrial Ecology at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO) and special professor in Functional Biodiversity at Wageningen University. Wim’s main interest is in aboveground-belowground multitrophic interactions, plant-soil feedback, succession, (soil) biodiversity, invasions, and climate change-induced range shifts. He had an ERC Advanced grant on community re-assembly under climate warming, is elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science. He co-founded the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (https://globalsoilbiodiversity.org/).

Matthias Rillig (Free University of Berlin, Germany)

Plastic pollution in terrestrial ecosystems

Matthias Rillig is head of the Plant, fungal and soil ecology lab at Freie Universität Berlin, which is part of the Institute of Biology and the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB). His research themes include ecological synthesis (e.g. using meta-analytical techniques), the biodiversity of soil aggregation (particularly the role of mycorrhizal and saprobic fungi and their interactions with other soil biota), biodiversity and community ecology of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (using methods of molecular ecology), soil biota effects on plants and plant communities, trait-based approaches in fungi, and global change biology including work on microplastic in soil.

Niklaus E. Zimmermann (Swiss Federal Research Institute, Switzerland)

Range expanding plants

The main research topics of Niklaus Zimmermann include (1) plant and ecosystems ecology, (2) macroecology, (3) biodiversity, and (4) evolutionary and functional ecology. He has considerable expertise in the conceptual and scientific advancement of predictive distribution modeling, in modelling climate change impacts on species, ecosystems and biodiversity, and in functional and evolutionary analyses related to biodiversity and community ecology. In addition, he has expertise in dynamic vegetation modeling, in analyzing functional and evolutionary processes leading to diversification, and in macro-ecological research involving the scaling of land resources in space and time.

Programme

Please click here

Registration

The registration deadline is October 15th, 2019. The registration fee is 1000 ¥ (~150 US$), and covers the coffee breaks, lunchs, dinners and the excursion. The registration fee has to be paid in cash at the conference. The registration fee for students is 800 ¥ (120 $). Students must present a certificate, such as valid student registration card, that confirms that they are students. Please contact us directly for registration (see contact information below).

Abstract Submission

After registration，you can login and then submit an abstract for an oral presentation or a poster on the conference website (http://gcep.tzc.edu.cn/wp-admin/admin.php?page=materials_submission). Please, use the template (Download Abstract Template) for the submission of your abstract. Since the number of slots for oral presentations is limited, we may have to decline some requests for oral presentations, and offer a poster presentation instead. Authors will be notified of a decision before October 15th, 2019.
The time slots for oral presentations are 12 minutes + 3 minutes for questions. Poster size should not exceed 0.95 m wide and 1.3 m long.

Accommodation

The congress takes place in the New Century hotel (http://www.taizkyhotel.com/). You can directly register at the reception desk. The hotel provides standard twin rooms and standard single rooms. The price is ¥340 ($50 , breakfast included) per night.

Travel

Taizhou is well connected by train, and has its own airport. There are, however, only few flights to and from Taizhou each day. Other nearby airports are Wenzhou (2h from Taizhou), Ningbo (2h) and Shanghai (Pudong Airport; 5h).

Important dates

May 1st: Registration and submission of abstracts open
September 30th: Submission of abstracts closes (deadline extended)
Before October 15th: Selection of oral presentations
October 15th: Registration closes
November 1st: Start of conference

For questions in English:

Caroline Brunel

E-mail: caroline.brunel@uni-konstanz.de

Robin Pouteau

E-mail: robin.pouteau@uni-konstanz.de

For questions in Chinese:

Jiang Wang

Tel: (+86) 13736522254; E-mail: wangjiang@tzc.edu.cn