During the week of July 15, Kai Zhu and Yi Liu participated in a macrophenology workshop at the Environmental Data Science Innovation & Inclusion Lab (ESIIL) in Boulder, Colorado. Throughout the workshop, Kai and Yi had the opportunity to connect with individuals from diverse institutions who shared their interests. Together, they generated innovative ideas and devised a plan for their next steps.
We are excited to announce that our paper, Prediction-based approach for quantifying phenological mismatch across landscapes under climate change, by Drs. Yiluan Song, Steven B. Munch, and Kai Zhu, has received an Honorable Mention for the 2023 Landscape Ecology's Best Article Award. Our team is honored to be acknowledged among the top contributions to the field. Congratulations to all authors and contributors!
Study shows climate change is moving tree populations away from the soil fungi that sustain them From SEAS News By Kelcie Walther | May 28, 2024 As our planet warms, many species are shifting to different locations as their historical habitats become inhospitable. Trees are no exception, but their shift to new areas has been lagging behind those of other plants and animals. Now, scientists show that the reason for this lag might [...]
The lab is celebrating the successful completion of two remarkable students, Carolina Arguiano and Ruoyu Wu. Carolina was a visiting PhD student from the National University of La Plata in Argentina, supported by the Fulbright Program, and worked on forest mycorrhizal modeling during her visit to the lab. Ruoyu, on the other hand, worked on fungal spore phenology in the lab for her thesis as a master's student in SEAS. As they move on to [...]
Peter Adler and Michael Stemkovski from Utah State University visited the lab and IGCB to discuss the collaborative project on ecological acclimation.
On April 12, the lab visited the University of Michigan Herbarium, guided by Dr. Brad Ruhfel. We were impressed by the vast collection of specimens and the potential that the herbarium data could provide for research. On a related note, Kai and Yiluan published a Commentary in New Phytologist on this topic last year. Zhu K, Song Y (2023), Harnessing herbaria to advance plant phenology research under global change. New Phytologist, 6, 2057-2059. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19088
We are excited to announce that Tim Muhich, one of our PhD students, received an Honorable Mention for the highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) for the year 2024. The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions. Through the NSF GRFP, Mr. Muhich proposed an innovative project aimed at empowering high schools [...]
On March 29th, 2024, Ziyu Zhou (undergraduate student) presented her research, “Near-term phenology forecasting with mechanistic and data-driven models,” at the Michigan Student Symposium for Interdisciplinary Statistical Sciences (MSSISS). This work, in collaboration with Drs. Yiluan Song and Kai Zhu, examines popular predictive phenological models through the lens of statistics and ecology.
The lab hosted Dan Katz from Cornell University's visit on March 29, 2024.
The Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) and the Institute for Global Change Biology (IGCB) co-organized the mini-symposium Understanding Biodiversity in a Changing Planet on March 21 – 22, 2024. On Day 1, with six invited talks and four lightning talks, the symposium presented a diverse range of studies leveraging innovative data science methods to gain deep insights into the changing biodiversity. On Day 2, a faculty roundtable discussion provoked thoughts on the status and future [...]