Keynote Speech
We are honored to invite six distinguished speakers for the keynote speech.
Social-ecological Ecosystem and Sustainability
Bojie Fu
Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Vice Chair of CERN Scientific Committee
Bojie Fu is a Distinguished Professor at the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He obtained his Ph.D. from a split Ph.D. programme in Peking University (Beijing, China) and University of Stirling (Stirling, UK) in 1989. He has been elected as an Academician of CAS, International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for Developing World (TWAS) and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society Edinburgh UK.
His research areas are land use and land cover change, landscape pattern and ecological processes, ecosystem services and management. He serves as the Vice President of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and the member of the multidisciplinary expert group on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He has published more than 500 scientific papers and 12 books, including Nature, Science, Nature Geoscience, Nature Climate Change, and Nature Sustainability. He has won the 2022 TWAS-Lenovo Science Award, the Tan Kah Kee Science Award-Earth Science, the Alexander von Humboldt Medal of EGU, the China National Natural Science Prize, the Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize of CAS and the Ho Leung Ho Lee Science and Technology Prize-Geosciences.
The Siginigificance of Scale in Long-term Ecological Studies
Yanfen Wang
Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Vice Chair of CERN Scientific Committee
Prof. Wang Yanfen is a global renowned soil ecologist from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), China. She received her Ph.D. degree in Ecology from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001.
She joined UCAS in 2002 and was appointed as the vice president in 2008. Long engaged in soil ecology, Prof. Wang focuses on the mechanisms of soil carbon stability under global changes. She has established a series of in-situ manipulated experiment platforms in Chinese northern grasslands to elucidate ecosystem responses and adaptations to global changes and anthropogenic activities. Her research has recognized the benefits of moderate human intervention in dryland ecosystems, thus reconciling the conflicts between utilization and conservation. During her professional career, she has published 3 monographs and over 340 papers in major scientific journals including Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, Nature Sustainability, Nature Communications, National Science Review, Global Change Biology, and Journal of Ecology. These findings pave a solid foundation for policy-making with regard to the sustainable ecosystem management. Prof. Wang serves as the vice president of China Ecological Society, China Natural Resources Society, International Scientific Center of Fertilizers (CIEC), and chair of China Committee of Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). She co-initiated the Global Dryland and Ecosystem Programme and chaired the Sino-German research and training program - Tree Diversity Interaction.
Bridging the Gap: The Role of Ground Observations in Enhancing Earth System Models and Satellite Data for a Sustainable Future
Mary-Jane Bopape
National Research Foundation - South African Environmental Observation Network
The Role of Ground Observations in Enhancing Earth System Models and Satellite Data for a Sustainable FutureBrief Bio: Mary-Jane Bopape is the Managing Director of the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON), a business unit of the National Research Foundation (NRF). She holds a PhD in meteorology from the University of Pretoria and did her postdoc at the University of Reading, UK. Prior to working at NRF, she worked at the South African Weather Service and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) where she atmopsheric modelling on different timescales. She led activities on a weather and climate project to implement the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Cyber-Infrastructure Framework. She co-supervises postgraduate students at the Universities of Limpopo, Cape Town, Witwatersrand, Pretoria and North West. She received a number of awards including Climate Research for Development (CR4D) fellowship, the 2021 AIMS Women Fellowship in Climate Change Science, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) award for young researchers, and was listed as one of the most influential Africans of 2021 by the New African magazine.
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Co-producing resilient futures
Marta Berbés-Blázquez
School of Planning and Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo
Bojie Fu is a Distinguished Professor at the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He obtained his Ph.D. from a split Ph.D. programme in Peking University (Beijing, China) and University of Stirling (Stirling, UK) in 1989. He has been elected as an Academician of CAS, International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for Developing World (TWAS) and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society Edinburgh UK.
His research areas are land use and land cover change, landscape pattern and ecological processes, ecosystem services and management. He serves as the Vice President of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and the member of the multidisciplinary expert group on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He has published more than 500 scientific papers and 12 books, including Nature, Science, Nature Geoscience, Nature Climate Change, and Nature Sustainability. He has won the 2022 TWAS-Lenovo Science Award, the Tan Kah Kee Science Award-Earth Science, the Alexander von Humboldt Medal of EGU, the China National Natural Science Prize, the Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize of CAS and the Ho Leung Ho Lee Science and Technology Prize-Geosciences.
Implementing a Whole System Approach via eLTER Standard Observations and enhanced eLTER Site design specifications
Michael Mirtl
eLTER Head Office director, UFZ, Germany
Dr. Michael Mirtl (male) is an ecologist and environmental engineer. He did his PhD thesis on the influence of floodplain forests water regimes on tree photosynthesis and completed training in plant physiology, biometrics, micro-meteorology and soil science at the University of Vienna (PhD), University of Agricultural Sciences (BOKU, BSc, MSc) and Technical University of Vienna.
Dr. Mirtl is leading the eLTER ESFRI process coordination for the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Germany (director of the eLTER Head Office). He is coordinator of the eLTER Preparatory Phase Project, chairperson of LTER-Europe, and leads the ICC of ILTER (International Long Term Ecological Research). Until 2017, Dr. Mirtl was head of the Department for Ecosystem Research & Environmental Information Management of Environment Agency Austria and coordinated the Austrian contribution to the UNECE ICP on Integrated Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Ecosystems, which includes assessment of critical loads and dynamic modelling at long-term observation sites. He has strong experience in developing concepts and management of research projects and coordinated about 50 projects in the field of deposition chemistry, karst hydrology, soil chemistry, remote sensing, bio-indicators and biodiversity monitoring. Dr. Mirtl did the design, logistics and QA/QS of Long-term Ecosystem Research & Monitoring Platforms, was leading expert in the development of MORIS (object-relational IS for ecosystem research data) and co-initiated the establishment of the Austrian LTER-Network (Chair of LTER-Austria 2008-2023) and the LTSER Platform “Eisenwurzen”. He is specialized in analysis of ecosystem research data, development of ontologies and semantic mediation and does conceptual work on the integration of ecological and socio-economic research in LTSER since 2003, including scaling issues and ecosystem services. Since 2019 he formally represents eLTER as partner in the Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure (GERI).
Understanding the impacts of intensified drought through an experimental lens
Melinda Smith
Department of Biology, Colorado State University
Melinda D. Smith is Professor in the Department of Biology at Colorado State University, and she currently serves as Chair of the CSU Faculty Council and Editor-in-Chief of Oecologia. Her research aims to understand the consequences of human-caused global changes, particularly climate change and climate extremes such as drought, eutrophication, and altered disturbance regimes, on plant populations and communities.
Long-term ecological research in South American rangelands reveals the effects of global change on ecosystem functioning
Laura Yahdjian
Agricultural Plant Physiology and Ecology Research Institute (IFEVA-CONICET).University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Agronomy, Ecology Department.
Laura Yahdjian is a Research Scientist at the Institute of Agricultural Plant Physiology and Ecology (IFEVA-CONICET) and a Professor at the Department of Ecology, Faculty of Agronomy, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her broad-scale research interests focus on the effects of global change on the ecology of grassland ecosystems, with a particular focus on ecosystem-level issues, including grazing controls on primary production, ecosystem sensitivity to drought, and the effects of exotic plant invasions on ecosystem functioning. Her field sites cover a variety of natural and human-modified ecosystems in the Patagonia and Pampas region of Argentina. She is actively involved in international global research networks (The Nutrient Network, The Drought Network, and BIODESERT), She is director of the Master´s Program in Natural Resources at the University of Buenos Aires and president of the Ecological Society of Argentina.