At the invitation of the Stable Isotope Ecology Research Group of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. Hiroyuki SASE from the Asian Air Pollution Research Center (ACAP) and Dr. Kazuo Isobe from the School of Agriculture and Life Sciences of the University of Tokyo visited IAE and gave two splendid talks on May 31, 2019. Almost 30 people, including Prof. FANG Yunting, associate researchers ZHANG Weidong, KANG Ronghua and WANG Chao, attended the academic meeting.

Prof. Hiroyuki SASE gave a talk entitled “EANET ecological monitoring and relevant research works”, highlighting the acid rain in Asia and its impacts. Prof. Kazuo Isobe's talk was entitled “Predictive understanding of microbial community response to global change”; in which, the relationship between the ecosystem nitrogen cycle and the ecological functions of microbial communities was reported, with a focus on estimating the nitrogen cycling rates in light of microbial functional traits. Dr. FANG and Dr. KANG gave the talks entitled "Ecosystem nitrogen cycling in two temperate forests and its response to increased nitrogen deposition in northeastern China" and "Exchange flux of nitric oxides between forest ecosystem and atmosphere”, respectively. Dr. ZHANG’s talk was entitled "Plant litter decomposition and its role in regulating SOC mineralization in subtropical forest ecosystem". Graduate students of the Stable Isotope Ecology Research Group discussed with the two visiting experts on issues such as the atmospheric acid deposition in Qingyuan and its ecological effects, as well as the dry and wet nitrogen deposition in Shenyang.

After the meeting, the two Japanese experts, accompanied by FANG Yunting and his team members, visited the Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem Research Station. The visitors were deeply impressed by the experimental conditions of the Qingyuan station. Professor Hiroyuki SASE and Prof. FANG then discussed the collaborative research in the future on watershed-scale biogeochemical cycle in Qingyuan.