He presented the plenary talk for the Phylogeny and Phylogeography Session on March 8, 2010 at the Legend Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

会后（2010年3月29号至4月28号）依庄防同学将在剑桥大学保护生态学组（University of Cambridge, Conservation Science Group）以及东安格利亚大学的全球环境的社会经济研究中心（University of East Anglia, The Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment）进行为期一个月的考察和实习。范欢同学将前往位于著名的英国皇家植物园丘园的BGCI（Botanical Gardens Conservation International植物园保护国际）进行考察和实习。

SCCS是由英国剑桥大学主办的唯一完全针对学生的关于保护生物学的国际会议(http://www.sccs-cam.org)，旨在帮助未来科学家相互学习和交流，并提供考察访问及合作研究机会为其今后的职业生涯提供宝贵经验。该会议每年接收来自全球的申请并从中筛选160个年轻且具有科研潜力的与会者，这160个与会者分别来自60多个国家。该会议在过去10年来已接待了来自106个国家和地区的1600名代表，是一年一度的国际保护生物学盛会。而会后的考察访问及合作研究机会更是从100多份与会者的申请中筛选出20个进行资助。我园首次有两名学生入选并获得实习机会及相关资助。

注：中国科学院研究生科技创新与社会实践资助专项社会实践类项目设立的目的是为了鼓励和引导科学院的研究生进行跨学科、跨地区的科学考察、访问研究及社会实践，促进理论联系实际，了解国情、院情，培养协作精神和创新意识，在实践中宣传科学知识、把握科学精神、掌握科学方法，切实提高研究生的科研能力与综合素质。其中社会实践类项目执行时间为一年，资助金额为一万元，项目执行完毕后2个月内，社会实践类项目获资助者须提交社会实践报告(5000字左右，含图片）和资助金支出情况报告。

Cannon 教授示范了如何切“火鸡”，并且还亲手给在场的每一位教授和同学切了美味的烤火鸡薄片。之后国际学校的孩子们以演唱活泼欢乐的圣诞歌曲 “Christmas Time Is Here” 拉开了晚会的帷幕；而后研究生会带来的“戏曲联唱”中的京剧，湖南花鼓戏和黄梅戏等让在场的听众们惊喜不断；从马来西亚来的 MelissaWong 穿着传统的马来服装给同学们表演的歌舞，让大家看到了马来西亚婀娜的女生。晚会最激动人心的环节就是拆礼物了，大家开开心心的拆开交换的礼物，结束了美好 的一个晚上。

Matthew Helmus博士等通过对受生物干扰（如物种入侵）、化学干扰（如酸化）、物理干扰（如控制水位线）三种干扰类型的18个湖泊和16个对照湖泊中浮游动物 的群落变化情况，发现无论哪种类型的干扰均会促使湖泊里浮游动物群落中近缘种普遍增加，物种的变化与群落内物种丰富度、均匀度及群体的数量无关；研究还发 现在酸性胁迫下湖泊中浮游动物群落变化最激烈；物种对特定干扰的敏感性具有系统发育学上的遗传性，与个体的大小无关，而且这种敏感性可以通过近缘种的行为 进行预测。因此，物种系统发育学的研究不失为一种用于研究和测量种群和群落对生态系统受到干扰的响应机制的有效手段。

Matthew Helmus 博士毕业于美国威斯康星大学，自2009年3月起在版纳植物园生态进化组做博士后研究，主要从事生态学、进化学及统计学的交叉研究，着重于进化过程中亲缘 关系相近的近缘种是否具有相似的生态变量的研究。同时结合新一代测序技术试图从基因组水平探知物种的进化关系，从而推测物种的入侵与灭绝。

2009年10月，中科院版纳植物园生态进化组成员参与了多项国际基因组学盛会，向世界介绍了中科院西双版纳热带植物园并着力推动热带树木基因组研究。

Cannon研究员与柯彩贤助理研究员参加了十月初在巴塞罗那举行的2009新一代测序技术大会(NGS2009)。会议旨在讨论如何应对新一代测序技术所带来的机遇与挑战。测序技术企业的代表们与学者们相互交流，并热烈讨论了这一新生领域的各类问题，特别是如何计算和处理由此项技术所产生的海量数据。Cannon研究员在会上发表了题为“Comparative Genomics of Tropical Evergreen Fagaceae”（壳斗科的比较基因组研究）的报告，着重介绍了该研究组在西双版纳热带植物园所进行的壳斗科基因组研究工作。柯彩贤助理研究员被邀请主持宏观基因组学分会。同时，两位专家还发表了题为“Using a ‘Framework Species’ Concept for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies in Comparative Genomic” 的学术墙报。

Cannon研究员与柯彩贤助理研究员还于十月中旬被邀参加了由中科院基因组所在北京举行的2009国际基因组学大会。Cannon研究员向与会者介绍了将在国际著名学术期刊 Molecular Ecology上正式发表的最新研究成果，Assembly- free comparative genomics: finding the needle in the haystack, 探讨了非组装比较基因组分析的可能性。该报告受到了广泛的好评，更有不少与会者提出了合作意向。

生态进化组博士后, Matthew Helmus博士于十月中旬在众多的报名者中脱颖而出，被选拔参加了在意大利博洛尼亚举行的基因组学在生态与保护生物学中的应用培训课程。该培训班的内容包括基因芯片数据的分析，第二代基因组测序技术，SNP芯片分析，以及DNA条形码。Helmus博士在课上也向大家介绍了西双版纳热带植物园和生态进化组的热带基因组研究。多位来自欧美国家的培训班的学员和老师都对版纳植物园的科研工作有了进一步的认识。 ]]> http://www.ecologicalevolution.org/2010/03/%e7%89%88%e7%ba%b3%e6%a4%8d%e7%89%a9%e5%9b%ad%e7%94%9f%e6%80%81%e8%bf%9b%e5%8c%96%e7%bb%84%e7%a7%af%e6%9e%81%e6%8e%a8%e5%8a%a8%e7%83%ad%e5%b8%a6%e6%a0%91%e6%9c%a8%e5%9f%ba%e5%9b%a0%e7%bb%84%e7%a0%94/feed/ 0 http://www.ecologicalevolution.org/2009/10/xtbg-scientists-attended-the-next-generation-sequencing-conference-ngs-2009-barcelona-spain/ http://www.ecologicalevolution.org/2009/10/xtbg-scientists-attended-the-next-generation-sequencing-conference-ngs-2009-barcelona-spain/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:33:53 +0000 chuck http://www.ecologicalevolution.org/?p=1251 Chuck Cannon and Chai-Shian Kua attended the Conference Of Next Gen Sequencing 2009 (1st-3rd, Oct ) at the  historical Casa Convalescencia of Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau,  Barcelona. This conference, with the aim to address challenges and oppurtunities presented by Next Gen Sequencing technology, has brought technological representatives and researchers together to interact and discuss various topics in this emerging field, especially the computational and statistical challenges in processing and anlayzing the massive amount of data.

Chuck Cannon presented a talk,  “Comparative Genomics of Tropical Evergreen Fagaceae”, which introduced and highlighted the genomics research on tropical forest trees of the Ecological Evolution Group at XTBG. Chai-Shian Kua was invited to chair the Metagenomic Session. They also co-presented a poster entitled “Using a ‘Framework Species’ Concept for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies in Comparative Genomics“.

The final symposium for the Advanced Fieldcourse in Ecology and Conservation in the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Gardens was held on August 6, 2009.  Ten student groups presented their independent research projects, demonstrating a lot of hard work and improvement.  Many of them tackled new topics and concepts, developed their own analyses and interpretations.  They obviously made a great deal of progress and overcame a lot of challenges in four short weeks.  They are to be congratulated for their success!!!

Read the “Addicted to Rubber” article here.

This link will take you to the page at XTBG’s website.

You can directly get the PDF here.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cityguide/2009-07/23/content_8464291.htm

Interesting to see how fragments of what you say can be used for different purposes.

Just the beginning?!?!

You can follow the progress of the course at our blog site:

http://afec-x.ecologicalevolution.org/live/

[From the society's website]

“The Hennig Society was founded in 1980 with the expressed purpose of promoting the field of Phylogenetic Systematics. Hennig’s idea that groups of organisms, or taxa, should be recognized and formally named only in cases where they are evolutionarily real entities, that is “monophyletic”, at first was controversial. It is now the prevailing approach to modern systematics.”  While not a member of the society, Dr. Cannon was highly entertained by the rowdy behavior of the cladists.  Dr. Ward Wheeler gave a memorable banquet speech about the life and times of a rising scientist at the Museum of Unnatural History.

The meeting also coincided with the first celebration of Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the “Origin of Species” in Singapore.

The publication, entitled “The current refugial rainforests of Sundaland are unrepresentative of their biogeographic past and highly vulnerable to disturbance”, illustrates that the current situation, where the islands are separated by the shallow South China Sea, is extremely unusual given the actual history of the region.  During most of the last million years, the islands were all joined in a single and much larger landmass.  Paleoclimate models strongly indicate that much of this landmass would have been covered with evergreen rainforests, forming an Amazon-like basin.  With the onset of the current climate conditions, with a much warmer globe and higher sea levels, forests have been forced to retreat onto the islands, becoming much smaller and more fragmented than they have been in the past.

These dynamics are widely recognized and well understood in North America and Europe but Dr. Cannon’s publication demonstrates that the dynamics in Sundaland are exactly in the opposite phase as those in the northern latitude.  This means that during the ice age, rainforest is at its greatest extent, while during the warm periods, like now, rainforest is at its lowest extent and exists only in refugia.  While we understand the expansion of populations out of refugia, we know almost nothing about how refugia are foremd.  This is a critical question confronting ecologists and biogeographers in Southeast Asia and the work led by Dr. Cannon provides a powerful tool for exploring these dynamics.

Finally, the results of this model have major conservation implications.  Much has been written about the decline and degradation of Southeast Asia’s rainforests.  The rate of conversion from natural forests to intensive plantation forest has remained high for many years.  This conversion reduces and fragments the rainforest, leaving little habitat for endangered species like orangutans and gibbons and sun bears and clouded leopards.  What this model highlights is the critical fact that the human conversion of Sundaland’s forests is occurring only a few thousand years after a major natural reduction and fragmentation of forest area occured due to changing climate and rising sea levels.  So, all of these endangered species were already at probably historical lows in their population and already highly vulnerable to population extinction.  And now, humans are adding insult to injury, in a sense.

The paper is available at the Early Edition site at PNAS:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/06/18/0809865106.abstract

As part of implementing the scientific outlook on development, the People’s Government of Xishuangbanna held a special meeting to absorb advice and suggestions from XTBG on April 24. The meeting brought together about 100 officials and cadres from the local government to listen to reports made by Prof. Chen Jin, Prof. Chuck Cannon, and Prof. Ma Youxin.

Prof. Chuck Cannon presented a general introduction to environmental protection on the global scale. He analyzed environmental problems in Xishuangbanna and introduced some experience of USA in ecological protection.

Chuck Cannon and Chen Jin

Summing up the GIS data on land use change and long-term monitoring data on climate change over the past 40 years, Prof. Ma Youxin made a report with the title of “The relationship between climate change and land use/cover change in Xishuangbanna”.

Prof. Ma Youxin

In his report titled “Countermeasures to harmonious development between economy and environment in Xishuangbanna”, Prof. Chen Jin proposed ecotourism, environment-friendly rubber garden and tropical forestry as major industries for the development of Xishaungbanna.

Prof. Chen Jin

After listening to the three reports, Mr. Jiang Pusheng, the CPC Secretary of Xishuangbanna, said that the local officials would study the reports carefully and make concise and effective policies to solve practical problems, so as to realize sound and rapid development.

Our international course will bring together advanced undergraduate and graduate students from the US, China and Southeast Asia for an intensive 4 week course in field research methods, research design, sampling and analysis.  Full scholarships are being offered for suitable candidates from Southeast Asian countries.

Format: The Advanced Field Ecology and Conservation-Xishuangbanna (AFEC-X) Course activities will be split between lecture and field exercises. Students will participate in two long term group projects and will gain experience designing, refining and finishing independent projects. The course concludes with a symposium, where students present results of course activities amongst their peers and instructors.

Where: The course convenes in Kunming, capital city of Yunnan, China. The first few days will be devoted to course orientation and introduction, followed by a series of lectures.  The course will then move to the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) in Menglun, China. Both the long term and independent research projects will take place in and around Menglun.

Topics: Tropical Ecology, Eco-Physiology, Taxonomy, Evolutionary Ecology, Plant and Animal Interactions, Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Invasive Species and more. Students will be expected to have completed assigned readings before the course begins and to actively participate in discussions throughout the various exercises.

Instructors will be drawn from several institutes, including The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Texas Tech University, Peking University, and the Smithsonian Institute.

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