In 2017, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and The Royal Society collected projects which would cooperate between researches from China and UK. In total, 342 projects were collected and 58 projects were supported. Professor Fang Yunting from Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of sciences, and his cooperator Dr. Sunitha Pangala The Open University applied and were both supported by this project. This project will be carried out from April 2018 to March 2020.

Dr.Sunitha Pangala is a young and very active scientist. His interests focus on the emission of tree methane and nitrous oxide and their controlling factors from both wetland and forest wetland, and the effect of tree during the production, transportation and emission of methane. His research has been published on excellent journals, such as Nature, New Phytologist, and Global Change Biology. The project obtained this time, ‘Assessing the impact of future nitrogen deposition and warming on methane and nitrogen cycling in temperate forests’, was based on the current project from professor Fang Yunting, ‘Effects of soil warming on nitrogen losses via gases and leaching in a temperate forest, northeastern China’. The research in this project includes the emission of methane and nitrous oxide from trees, the interaction between trees and soils in forests, and the associated controlling factors. For Chinese partners, the new project added new research contents and strengths to the current researches, and would increase scientific outcomes; for the UK partners, they will establish a study site in a UK temperate forest under the help from Professor Fang’s group to fully investigate the effects of these future climate change scenarios on methane and nitrogen cycling.

This project opens opportunities for UK-China studentships and long-term exchange projects and paves the way for collaborative funding applications.