Research programs at the Laboratory of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of Yunnan University

1. The evolution of pollination ecology and plant breeding systems; species formation and adaptation mechanisms and their relationship with geological history (Qinghai-Tibet Plateau uplift and environmental changes). Carry out studies on the  pollination ecology and breeding systems (including flower evolution) of alpine plants in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Hengduan Mountains -- and to explore the relationship between plant adaptive radiation and species formation mechanisms and climate and other environmental changes.

2. Ecological-evolution-developmental biology research. Taking the plateau plants in the Hengduan Mountains as the research focus, to carry out studies on the impact of global climate change on plant flower development and then study the molecular regulation mechanism of flower development and the effect of flower development changes on species differentiation.

3. Conservation biology research. Taking star plant group Orchidaceae as the research focus, to carry out research work on species collection (ex-situ conservation), habitat protection (in situ conservation), artificial propagation and re-introduction (regression), pollination biology and reproduction ecology.

4. Research into the relationship between animals and plants and neuroecology. Integrate neuroscience and ecology to study the effects of plant tissue structures, shape, color, odor and other secondary metabolites on instinctive behaviors -- such as feeding, mating, pollination and parasitic or acquired sexual behaviors of animals -- and analyze animal feelings and the "information molecule-neural circuit" mechanism of cognitive ecology. Develop precise technology with neural information molecules as the core, to regulate the relationship between animals and plants.

5. Ecological research on plant water use and global change. Using plant physiology techniques and methods, combined with plant anatomical structural features -- from the perspective of plant hydraulic structured and the water relationship -- to explore the physiological processes of plants such as water absorption, transportation, storage and loss, against the background of global change and the maintenance of their carbon-water balance mechanisms. This is so as to reveal the water-use strategies and ecological adaptation mechanisms of different plant functional groups amid global climate change and human activity interference.

6. Research into the relationship between above-ground and underground ecological processes. Mainly engage in the study of the relationship between soil ecological processes and plant physiological ecological processes, the role of soil microorganisms and soil animals in determining and maintaining plant community diversity -- and the relationship between above-ground and underground ecological processes and carbon cycle processes.