A two-day scientific symposium addressing forest-grassland ecosystem monitoring concluded on July 7th at the Erguna Forest-Steppe Ecotone Research Station. Jointly organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) and the National Innovation Alliance for Grassland Conservation in Agro-Pastoral Transition Zones, the event convened over 80 researchers and graduate students from institutions including Peking University, China Agricultural University, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou University, Hebei University, Northeast Forestry University, Inner Mongolia University, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, and Shenyang Normal University.

Deputy Director FANG Yunting of IAE delivered opening remarks alongside Erguna Vice Mayor YOU Qian, highlighting the station’s decade-long contributions to ecological research. Station Chief WANG Zhengwen outlined the station’s development, scientific functions, and regional collaborations, prompting in-depth exchanges on its development trends and future directions.

Keynote sessions explored critical themes including innovative ecological monitoring and research based on new paradigms and concepts, grassland responses to global change, systemic restoration, high-quality development, as well as carbon source-sink accounting and carbon sink effects in the context of global warming. FENG Renguo from the Institute of Semiconductors further enriched the agenda with a cross-disciplinary talk on scientific culture.

Attendees engaged in vigorous debates during Q&A sessions. Field visits to experimental plots deepened understanding of the Greater Khingan Mountains’ forest-steppe ecotone (transition zones between biome boundaries). Participants conducted field visits to the Erguna Station’s experimental plots and typical ecosystems in the forest-steppe ecotone, discussing the landscape and vegetation characteristics of this transitional zone, further enhancing their understanding of the western slopes of the Greater Khingan Mountains.

The gathering exemplifies the growing focus on synergistic approaches to ecosystem resilience in ecologically vulnerable regions.

Field visit to research platforms in Erguna Station