New Subject Editor: Zhiheng Wang
Submitted by editor on 7 January 2014.
Dr Zhiheng Wang is a macroecologist, working on large-scale patterns of species diversity and the responses of species to past and future climatic change. He got his PhD in physical geography from Peking Univ. in 2009. In 2011-2012, he worked as a Marie Curie Fellow in Unive. of Copenhagen, and was recruited as an assistant professor in 2012-2013. Since 2013, he is funded by the ‘the 1000-Young-Talent Program of China’, and was appointed as an assistant professor and senior researcher in Peking Univ., China.
Since 2005, Dr Wang has been compiling the ‘Database of China’s Woody Plants’ (V2.0;http://www.ecology.pku.edu.cn/plants/woody/index.asp), which contains the distributions, morphology and climatic niches of the 11 405 woody species in China. A recent publication based on the database (Fang et al. 2011. ‘Atlas of Woody Plants in China: Distribution and Climate’ p. p1-1999) won the highest award for publishing in China in 2011, ‘the Chinese Government Award for Publishing’. He has worked extensively on the patterns of species diversity and beta diversity of plants in China, and his current research combines phylogenetic data with macroecology to explore how climate and macroevolution influence local and regional species diversity and assembly.