On December 30, 2019, the 42nd lecture of the Frontier Forum of Environmental Science & Engineering co-sponsored by the Key Laboratory of Pollution Ecology & Environmental Engineering, the Office of Graduate Student Affairs and the Microbial Ecology and Technology Group of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was held successfully at the IAE. Dr. LIANG Xiaolong, postdoctoral fellow of the University of Washington (St. Louis), was invited to give an academic talk entitled "Soil Virus Ecology: Abundance, Distribution, Diversity and Impacts on Microbial Community". More than 50 people including FU Bin, head of the Student Affairs Office attended the talk.

Dr. LIANG presented the researches he conducted during his PhD period: the distribution and diversity of agricultural soil virus and its potential relationship with the composition and diversity of bacterial communities; the potential impact of soil virus replication strategies and community composition on coexisting bacterial communities in soils at different depths; responses of soil virus community to microbial activity in a reduced environment. At the end of the talk, Dr. LIANG shared his experience studying abroad at the University of Tennessee, and introduced the China-US 100-PhD Program, which aroused great interest of the audience, especially the graduate students.

Dr. LIANG graduated from the IAE with a master's degree in 2015. He went to the University of Tennessee for a PhD degree through the China-US 100-PhD Program. He received his PhD degree in September 2019. During his PhD study, he as the first-author published 6 papers in journals such as Environmental Microbiology, Soil Biology & Biochemistry, Chemosphere, etc., and won the University of Tennessee President Award as an outstanding graduate.

The China-US 100-PhD Program is a cross-disciplinary, high-level talent training program implemented under the framework of the China-US Green Partnership Program. The goal of this project is to cultivate interdisciplinary, future science & technology leaders with international vision, strong innovation ability and high all-around quality in the fields of sustainable development of agriculture, ecological environment and renewable energy. At present, the IAE has sent 9 master graduates through this project, and 5 of them have obtained PhD degrees.