1. Brief Introduction
“Environmental Ecology & Restoration Research Team” takes the cutting-edge theories and technics of the environmental ecology, botany, microbiology, environmental science and engineering and environmental ecotoxicology as the basic researching support and takes the national policy and regional ecological environment characteristics and apparent ecological environment issues as the research orientation. Meanwhile the coupling relationships and internal mechanisms of various ecological elements such as plants, soil, microorganisms, and environmental factors are been explored. At present, the team includes four research group: “Invasion Ecology and Security Group”, “Environmental Microbiology and Resource Utilization Group”, “Environmental Pollution and Ecological Restoration Group”, and “Ecological Toxicology and Health Group”.
2. Members
The head of the “Environmental Ecology & Restoration Research Team” is Professor Daolin Du, the Dean of the School of the Environment and Safety Engineering. At present, there are 26 full-time teaching and research staff with doctoral degree in the team, including 4 professors/researchers, 16 associate professor/associate researcher and 6 lecturer/assistant researcher. Furthermore, 3 of them are foreign talents, 2 of them are doctoral supervisors, 19 of them are master supervisors, while 11 of them have the experience of learning abroad and being academic visitors. In addition, 1 of them is honoured as the New Century Excellent Researchers of the Ministry of Education, 1 of them as the Talents with special Allowance from the State Council, 3 of them as the provincial Talents, and 3 of them as the school-level Youth Backbone Teachers.
3. Academic Achievements
During recent years, it has undertaken more than 70 scientific research projects, including more than 20 projects founded by National Natural Science Foundation, 2 National key research and development projects, and nearly 50 provincial and ministerial level projects. More than 200 academic papers had been published in domestic and foreign academic journals (among which was nearly 150 SCI papers); more than 30 authorized patents; 3 Provincial Science and Technology Progress Awards; have cultivated over 50 master students, about 10 PhDs, and nearly 20 postdoctoral fellows.
4. Main Research Fields
(1) Invasive Ecology and Security
Focusing on biosafety issues dominated by invasive plants, clarifying the environmental ecological effects, environmental ecological risk level and the driving mechanism of successful invasion as the core of the research. Then hammering on research projects about the field of invasive ecology under global climate change. The content involves Invasion Ecology, Global Change Ecology, Chemical Ecology, Evolutionary Ecology, Molecular Ecology, Environmental Microbial Ecology, etc., from macro to micro levels to explain the biological ecological effects, environmental impacts, invasion mechanisms and mechanisms of invasive plants prevention and control. Trying to lay a theoretical foundation for China to build a platform for early warning & prevention & control of biosafety issues dominated by invasive plants, thereby promoting the construction of China's ecological civilization.
(2) Environmental Ecology and Mechanism
Studying the impact of typical environmental issues such as environmental pollution, climate warming, acid rain, etc. on individual organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, landscapes, etc. from different levels and perspectives and mechanisms; discussing the response and mechanism of wetland and other ecosystems and their composition to global changes; conducting research on the impact of industry and urbanization on different types of ecosystems and their functions and mechanisms.
(3) Environmental Microbiology and Resource Utilization
Environmental microbes and resource utilization mainly focus on the responses of rhizosphere microbes to various environmental stresses under the "microbe-plant interaction" system, and on the regulation mechanism of various ecosystem processes. Besides, the corresponding microbial resources are explored to be applied to the remediation of environmentally polluted water and soil. This workload can be expected to provide security assurance for a steady progression of public health and environment.
(4) Ecological Restoration and Construction of Conservation Culture
Carrying out researches on the development and utilization of biological ecological resources, especially using the combination of environmental science and modern biological ecological engineering technologies as the main carrier, we develop the application of organisms in environmental treatment, and then carry out R&D work on the restoration of ecological environmental pollutants and damaged ecosystems, such as refractory industrial organic wastewater in the process of urbanization, SO2, nitrogen oxides in coal-fired flue gas, solid waste, water pollutants, agricultural non-point source pollution, etc. Furthermore, against the background of ecological crises such as heavy metal pollution, organic pollution and plant invasion, taking the coastal estuary invaded wetlands in the east, southeast, and south of China as the main research area, our team focuses on the study of the biogeochemical cycle process and mechanism of the elements in the process of interaction between pollutants and biogenic elements (such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, etc.), and the ecological restoration of polluted coastal estuary wetlands.
(5) Ecological Toxicology and Health
Based on toxicological researches and detections of environmental pollutants, we analysed POPs, environmental hormones, heavy metals, pesticides, fertilizers, acid rain, nitrogen depositions and other possible entry points for them to get into the ecological environment from different levels including molecules, cells, individuals, populations, and ecosystems. We also examined other issues may arise in this topic which contains environmental ecological behaviours, pollution mechanisms, ecotoxicology of various chemicals and potential pollutants (such as ionic liquids, nanomaterials, etc.) Meanwhile, various biological pollutants, as well as their ecotoxic effects and mechanisms on plants, animals, and cells were researched. At the same time, the team was engaged in the development of rapid detection technology for mycotoxins, antibiotics, environmental endocrine disruptors and other pollutants, exploring the impacts of these pollutants on the ecosystem, as well as the impacts of potential hazards on biological and ecosystem which leads to the study of mechanisms & preventions & control.
Contact: Prof. Daolin Du
E-mail: daolindu@163.com
Website: http://iee.ujs.edu.cn/
