Researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their international collaborators offer a new framework for understanding how mountain biodiversity arises and why different ranges follow distinct evolutionary paths. Their findings reveal that a synergistic combination of deciduousness and small densely veined (SDV) leaves, together with the timing of mountain uplift and climate change, explains why the Hengduan–Himalayas host far more species of barberry (Berberis) than the Andes.

Researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their international collaborators offer a new framework for understanding how mountain biodiversity arises and why different ranges follow distinct evolutionary paths. Their findings reveal that a synergistic combination of deciduousness and small densely veined (SDV) leaves, together with the timing of mountain uplift and climate change, explains why the Hengduan–Himalayas host far more species of barberry (Berberis) than the Andes.

Prof. Fan Zexin, deputy director of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), headed up a team to carry out joint field survey in Laos from July 13-19, in collaboration with the Faculty of Forestry at the National University of Laos (NUOL). The visit aimed to strengthen bilateral cooperation in tropical forest ecological monitoring and global change studies.Their work focused on site selection for the TreeNet, a network monitoring tree growth.

Yunnan province's revised wildlife protection regulation recognizes the growing complexity of Asian elephant conservation by expanding protection efforts beyond nature reserves to habitat connectivity, scientific monitoring and human-wildlife coexistence, an internationally renowned elephant expert has said.

Researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) and South China Botanical Garden (XTBG) have recently completed their 27-day joint botanical expedition to Laos. They conducted systematic field surveys in multiple nature reserves across Houaphan and Khammouane provinces, marking the first such collaborative biodiversity mission of 2026.