National Science Foundation assistant director accelerates ASU science ties with China

James Collins
James Collins

September 07, 2007 – The words “complexity” and “sustainability” haven’t commonly been partnered with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, China, but that is changing. Some 1,400 environmental scientists, and policy makers from 70 countries gathered at the EcoSummit 2007 in Beijing earlier this year to discuss such issues and the challenges of global warming and ecosystem degradation. Taking part was James Collins, Virginia M. Ullman Professor of Natural History and Environment of ASU’s School of Life Sciences, and assistant director for the biological sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Collins delivered the opening plenary lecture “Ecology in the 21st century: Where do we go from here?”

Looking ahead is exactly why this veritable Who’s Who of environmental science was staged in China. Only the third EcoSummit since 1996 and the first to be held in Asia, the EcoSummit concept was launched to “encourage integration of the natural and social sciences with the policy and decision-making community, develop deeper understandings of complex ecological issues.” EcoSummit 2007 reflects the belief that international collaboration is fundamental to developing sustainable solutions to this century’s ecological global challenges. Challenges tasked to also include “human well-being in the context of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.”

Understanding the complex relationships between humans, plants, insects, microbes and soils is at the heart of one such collaborative research effort between U.S. and Chinese scientists in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Collins visited the study site of ASU ecologists Jingle Wu and James Elser, professors in the School of Life Sciences, at the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station (IMGERS). Their work there, Elser says, is an outgrowth of another NSF-funded scientific exchange program; one he led organized around “Ecological Complexity and Ecosystem Services," with Zhibin Zhang, director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology, that brought more than a dozen U.S. scientists to China, including Wu, and Chinese scientists to ASU in 2004.

The Ecosystem Research Station, established in 1979, is considered the most influential long-term ecological research site in China, according to Wu. This ASU-China collaborative supported by $1.2 million in funds from the NSF, and an additional $2.3 million contributed by Chinese National Science Foundation (NSFC), hopes to develop understanding of and improve management practices in this semi-arid ecosystem, one of the largest natural grasslands in the world. In addition, this research effort is expected to provide significant educational, cultural, and research experiences for U.S. and Chinese students, and establish “a long-term scientific platform in the Inner Mongolia Grassland for U.S.-China collaborations on ecological research, particularly in biocomplexity, and sustainability science for years to come.”

“Collins’ visit to the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station, was indicative of NSF's global vision for scientific exploration and genuine efforts to promote international collaborations,” notes Wu, who is also a member of the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU and recipient of the 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science International Science Award for his leadership in sustainability science and “his career-long involvement with landscape ecological research in China.”

Wu, an advisor to the President's Office on China Affairs at ASU, says that the impact of Collins’ visit to China was “substantial, creating a wave of positive reactions” from scientists and leaders from Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who administers the Ecosystem Research Station, as well other institutions in Beijing, including the Chinese National Science Foundation.

“I believe that Dr. Collins' visit was historic because it marked a new beginning of U.S.-China scientific collaborations in ecological research: sharing ideas, experiences and results with financial support from both sides that will produce first-rate papers, and practical solutions for sustainability globally,” Wu says.

For more details:

Margaret Coulombe
(480) 727-8934
Margaret.coulombe@asu.edu