March 21 marks the international day of forests, I’m now in Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), one of the largest botanical gardens of the rainforest ecosystem, drawing international experts to do research on ecology and wildlife protection. Today, I’m meeting one of them, Prof. Jose Ahimsa, to talk about his thoughts and insights about the rainforest and Asian elephant protection

“I suspect … that rhinos are much more important for the plants they disperse, than the fruits of these plants are for rhinos,” says study co-author Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute.

Chinese and Vietnamese researchers have discovered Mucuna fossil pods dating back approximately 10 million years in northern Vietnam, according to a recent research article published in the Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology.

Cao Min is a Professor at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He is also PI of two ForestGEO plots in China: Xishuangbanna and Ailaoshan. He decided to set up a 1-ha plot in Xishuangbanna after visiting the 50-ha Pasoh FDP in Malaysia in the 1990s, and 13 years later, Min established a second plot in Xishuangbanna, this one covering an area of 20-ha and subscribing to ForestGEO’s census protocols. The Xishuangbanna plot is also a member of the Chinese Forest Biodiversity Network (CForBio). Collectively, Xishungbanna and Ailaoshan offer opportunities for methods training, MSc and PhD work, and postdoctoral research.

In the words of Richard Corlett, a world-renowned British conservation biologist, it was China's sincere commitment to biodiversity conservation that brought him to the country's Yunnan province in July 2012. Before then, Corlett had studied tropical plants for over three decades in Southeast Asia. After receiving an invitation from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he happily packed his bags and embarked on a new research journey.

In a field survey, they collected some special fleshy flowers of Aspidistra. After careful morphological studies and consulting a large amount of literature, they confirmed two cast iron plant species new to science and published them in Taiwania.

In the course of exploring family Araceae in Sagaing Region, Myanmar, a researcher came across an enigmatic Typhonium species collected in Monywa and Budalin Township of Monywa District in August 2020. After careful morphological examination and comparison to the relevant literature, the researchers confirmed it as new to science.