The 2023 Advanced Field Course in Ecology and Conservation - Xishuangbanna (AFEC-X 2023), the 15th of its kind, came to a successful end on December 6, with participants presenting their 9 interesting research to a panel of judges.
From October 26 to December 6, the 33 trainees from 14 countries in 25 institutions successfully completed all the courses. The training course lasted for 6 weeks, and was divided into three modules: frontier research (1 week), research skills (3 weeks), and independent topic research (2 weeks).
The course included lectures on topics such as biodiversity science, climate change science, conservation biology, animal-plant relationships, plant phylogeny and evolution, skill training in experimental design and statistics, reproducible science, community ecology, field work, and practical activities such as independent topic research.
The students were divided into 9 groups to carry out research projects. They presented their projects as following:
1. Investigation of Color Preferences in Canopy Ants
2. Effect of Elephant Herbivory on Root Exudation in Forest
3. Canopy & Ground Ant Mechanics comparison under Extreme Environment: Wind & Flood
4. Habitat Specificity of Anti-predatory Color Adaptations in Tropical Asian Butterflies
5. Topic of our group: Thermal adaptation of invertebrates from open and closed canopy landscapes
6. A Common Garden Approach to Study the Herbivore Pressure on Native and Exotic Plants
7. Coexistence of Preys and Predators by Spatio-temporal Niche Partitioning
8. Are Insect Hotels Good for Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Education?
9. Does make-up matter? canopy ornaments influence understory plant heterogeneity?
This year, the best research award went to the project titled “Canopy & Ground Ant Mechanics comparison under Extreme Environment: Wind & Flood” completed by 4 trainees from XTBG, Lanzhou University, Central Department of Environmental Science of Nepal, and Kasetsart University of Thailand.
At the closing ceremony, Prof. Chen Jin, head teacher of the training course, said that the trainees were from different countries with diverse research backgrounds, which was rich in diversity but also increased the difficulty of implementing the training course. He congratulated all the trainees on successfully completing the training courses and encouraged the trainees to continue their research topics and strive to publish related papers in academic journals. He hoped that AFEC-X would pay more attention to the cultivation of future scientists and conservation.
Since its inception in 2009, the course has received 1772 valid applications. 418 trainees from different countries and regions around the world have completed all the courses.
Best project winners pose a photo with teachers and judges.
Teachers and trainees pose a photo.
