Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) held its 2024 Academic Annual Meeting and Cai Xitao Youth Academic Forum from December 4-5, to showcase the research progress in plant sciences, ecology, and conservation biology. It brought together over 300 participants throughout the garden.
The theme of the annual conference is “Continuing the struggle to enter the innovative era of National Botanical Gardens”.
At the opening ceremony, Prof. Xing Yaowu, deputy director of XTBG, reviewed and summarized the development history of the academic annual meeting over the past 9 years, with a particular emphasis on introducing the significant scientific and technological advancements in 2024.
The two-day meeting included 1 special invitation report, 3 plenary presentations, 39 PI presentations, 47 Cai Xitao Youth Academic Forum presentations, and 26 posters. Ouyang Zhiyun, a researcher with the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of CAS, was invited to give an online report titled "China's biodiversity pattern and the construction of natural conservation system".
Prof. Tian Weimin, Prof. Chen Zhanqi, and Prof.Kyle Tomilinson made plenary presentations on the first day. They shared research results on China's natural rubber production capacity improvement technical bottlenecks and XTBG's solutions; offspring selection hypothesis; and the evolutionary ecological research of plant physical defense, respectively.
Gan Fanyuan and Li Tingyu each gave a special report on party-building leading scientific and technological innovation and research integrity.
38 principal investigators presented the research progress of their groups respectively, in terms of scientific research projects, outputs, and team building.
At the Cai Xitao Youth Academic Forum, young researchers, engineers, and graduate students showcased their achievements. 12 outstanding youth presentations and 3 outstanding posters were awarded prizes.
Prof. Chen Jin, director of the academic committee, summarized the meeting. He emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary and diverse research paradigms, and pointed out that scientific research should first focus on mission-driven research needs, strive to seize the commanding heights of science and technology, combine focus and interest, and create an innovative atmosphere full of collision and exchange with a good working state.
XTBG will continue to devote itself to building an open and cooperative research platform, focusing on tropical biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of plant resources, and jointly creating an international "science island" that connects the world and gathers talents.
The annual meeting 2024 of XTBG.
Prize winners at the annual meeting.
Participants pose a group photo.
