On November 23, 2018, at the invitation of Prof. Edith BAI and associate Prof. WANG Chao from the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Biochemistry Group of IAE, Professor Andreas Richter of the University of Vienna, Austria, paid an academic visit to IAE.

From November 8 to 9, 2018, the 213th Shuangqing Forum of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) was held in Shenyang. The theme of this forum was “Key Scientific Issues of Demand-Oriented Forestry Science”. The forum was co-sponsored by the Department of Life Sciences, the Department of Chemistry and the Policy Bureau of NSFC, and organized by the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Academician ZHANG Shouqi and Academician JIANG Jianchun of the Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF), and Prof. ZHU Jiaojun of IAE jointly served as the chairman of the forum. More than 40 experts and scholars from CAS, CAF, universities or other research institutions attended the forum.

Invited by Dr. ZHOU Xinhua, director of Ker Joint Laboratory for Forest Trace Gas and Isotope Flux Monitoring and Research (a lab co-established on May 15th, 2018 by the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Campbell Scientific Inc., referred to as ‘Ker Lab’ hereinafter), a group of five people from Campbell Scientific Inc. (the world-renowned instrument supplier in the fields of meteorology, hydrology and ecology), including Mr. Thomas Newman, Campbell Scientific Director for Asian Affairs, Ms. Emily Fu, head of Campbell Scientific China, Ms. Emma Feng, manager of the Department of Environmental Affairs of Campbell Scientific China, and Dr. ZHENG Ning, application scientist of Campbell Scientific China as well as member of Ker Lab, visited the Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem Research Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (referred to as “Qingyuan Station” hereinafter) on October 23, 2018.

On October 24th, the Three-North Shelterbelt Conference in the parallel session of the 4th International Congress on Planted Forests was held in Beijing with the theme of “Forty years Construction of Three-North Program - Approaching Green Development”. The parallel conference was jointly sponsored by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration of China (NFGA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and organized by the Northwest North and Northeast Shelterbelt Construction Bureau of NFGA (hereinafter referred to as the “Three-North Bureau”) and the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of CAS. More than 300 people including experts and scholars in the field of protective forestry as well as the constructors and managers of the Three-North Shelterbelt Program attended the conference.

The English academic journal Ecological Processes, which is affiliated with the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been officially accepted by Clarivate (formerly Thomson Reuters) for indexing in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).

On September 22, 2018, "Thirty Years of China’s Landscape Ecology and Mr. XIAO Duning's 60 Years of Scientific Research Symposium" was held at the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The symposium was hosted by IAE and co-sponsored by the China Branch of the International Association for Landscape Ecology as well as the Landscape Ecology Committee of the Ecological Society of China (ESC). It was launched to sum up and review the development of landscape ecology in China and to guide the future development direction for this discipline.

Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, i.e. the Sino-Russian International Cooperation Project (NSFC-RFBC), “Microbiological Mechanism of Soil Organic Matter Transformation Temperature Sensitivity: Metabolic Activity, Genetic Diversity and Community Structure” (31811530080), Irina Kravchenko and Marina Sukhacheva, senior researchers from the Biotechnology Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mikhail Semenov, researcher from the V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Institute, conducted a seven-day visit and academic exchange to the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from September 23rd to 29th, 2018.

On September 26, 2018, at the invitation of the Ecological Stoichiometry Research Group of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), Professor Seth Pritchard of Charleston College of the United States came to IAE for an academic visit and exchange. Professor Pritchard gave a talk entitled “Understanding the life history of Fine roots: Comments on methods of measuring turnover rates and quantifying decomposition" and shared his research experience in the past 20 years on fine root turnover and decomposition in forests. Professor Pritchard is engaged in forest ecology, underground ecology and global change ecology research. He is also one of the main promoters of minirhizotron method for the study of fine-root turnover and decomposition.

From September 26th to 27th, 2018, at the invitation of the Eco-Climate Group of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), a team of four scientists from Finland, including Professor Markku Kulmala, director of the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR), University of Helsinki, Professor Tuukka Petaja, Dr. Jaana Back and Dr. Joni Kujansuu came to the Changbai Mountain Forest Ecosystem Research Station of CAS (hereinafter referred to as Changbai Station) for a two-day visit and academic exchange.