The Soil Ecology and Agricultural Ecological Engineering Research Center of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) formed a featured innovation team for ‘Agro-Ecosystem Process and Regulation’ Research and held its kick-off meeting on the morning of July 17, 2019.

A dozen or so scientists from eight research groups of IAE (including the Soil Fertility and Nutrient Cycling Group, the Applied Soil Biochemistry Group, the Plant Nutrition and Fertilizers Group, the Soil Ecology Group, the Agro-ecological Engineering Group, the Biogeochemistry Group, the Agricultural Water and Soil Engineering Group and the Ecosystem Microbiology Group) formed this featured team and attended the kick-off meeting. WU Zhijie and ZHANG Xudong, two specially invited experts, were present at the meeting. The meeting was hosted by HE Hongbo, chief scientist of the featured team and head of the Soil Ecology and Agricultural Ecological Engineering Research Center.

HE Hongbo stated that the original intention of forming the featured team was to address the strategic needs of the nation such as food security, soil conservation and environmental protection. “The primary aims of the featured team are to solve soil degradation problem, improve soil production and ecological functions, realize the efficient use of resources and sustainable development of agriculture, and effectively promote the use and protection of black soil in Northeast China by implementing the national policy of ‘storing grains with sufficient field and high-level technology’,” HE said. Subsequently, the members of the featured team reported their own research plans within the framework of the whole team. The two specially invited experts then made constructive comments on these plans.

The establishment of this featured team will lay a good foundation for the future development of IAE.