Research Area

My current research focuses on understanding the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of biodiversity, with particular emphasis on how human activities and climate change influence biodiversity across multiple spatial scales. The main areas of research include: (1) spatial distribution patterns of biodiversity and their underlying drivers in the context of global change; (2) trends and drivers of biodiversity change; and (3) evaluation of the effectiveness of protected areas and the development of optimized strategies for biodiversity conservation.

Introduction

I received my Bachelor's degree in July 2012 from South China Agricultural University and my Ph.D. degree in January 2019 from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 2019 to 2024, I conducted postdoctoral research at Aarhus University, Denmark, and at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Germany. In September 2024, I joined the Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. I have published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers, including first-author publications in PNAS, Science Advances, Nature Communications, and Global Ecology and Biogeography. My Ph.D. dissertation was selected as an Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I currently serve as an Associate Editor of Global Ecology and Biogeography.

Selected publications

Wubing Xu, Wenyong Guo, Josep M. Serra-Diaz…Jens-Christian Svenning & Alejandro Ordonez. 2023. Global beta-diversity of angiosperm trees is shaped by Quaternary climate change. Science Advances, 9, eadd8553.

Wubing Xu, Shane A. Blowes, Viviana Brambilla, Cher F. Y. Chow, Ada Fontrodona-Eslava, Inês S. Martins, Daniel McGlinn, Faye Moyes, Alban Sagouis, Hideyasu Shimadzu, Roel van Klink, Anne E. Magurran, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Brian J. McGill, Maria Dornelas & Jonathan M. Chase. 2023. Regional occupancy increases for widespread species but decreases for narrowly distributed species in metacommunity time series. Nature Communications, 14, 1463.

Wubing Xu, Jens-Christian Svenning, Guoke Chen, Minggang Zhang, Bin Chen, Jihong Huang, Alejandro Ordonez & Keping Ma. 2019. Human activities have opposing effects on distributions of narrow-ranged and widespread plant species in China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116: 26674-26681.

Wubing Xu, Jens-Christian Svenning, Guoke Chen, Bin Chen, Jihong Huang & Keping Ma. 2018. Plant geographical range size and climate stability in China: Growth form matters. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 27: 506-517.

Wubing Xu, Guoke Chen, Canran Liu & Keping Ma. 2015. Latitudinal differences in species abundance distributions, rather than spatial aggregation, explain beta-diversity along latitudinal gradients. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 24: 1170-1180.