2019年3月27-28日，德国基金会资助的三个国际博士研究生培训项目之一TreeDi在中国科学院大学雁栖湖校区召开博士生会议。我非常荣幸代表中方致欢迎词并做1小时Keynote Speech。下午是Nico Eisenhauer教授详细介绍Jena的BEF项目的演进历史。Nico是一位年青的教授，现在主持Jena实验，拥有非常丰富的多样性研究经验。2015年5月，我有幸参加BEF-China的代表团，前往德国访问过这个试验站（https://www.researchgate.net/project/The-Jena-Experiment）。下面这张图中，Nico提到Jena试验站罕见遇到一次夏季发大水。很多长期实验，特别是一些博士后、博士研究生的题目受到了影响。但他们有长期积累的数据，及时组织了站里和其他合作者，对洪水前后的数据进行了分析。这样，他们把灾难性的洪水，变成了一次难得一遇的数据收集和整合分析机遇。该工作发表在Nature  Communication杂志上。我结合自己读过Nico的一些文献，收获很大。我也建议现在德国哥廷根大学Andreas Schult实验室放学的王明强同学，抽空多多了解Nico的工作，并找时间去看看Jena试验站。

下面记录的我的文字稿。由于大部分德方合作者都是多年的老朋友，我和到场的中德研究生也于去年启动会一起，都比较熟悉。致辞时，我也没有太拘泥于文字稿，自由发挥了一下。

图片自Douglas Chesters博士

Good morning, distinguished scientists, Ph.D. students and all participants, ladies and gentlemen, 
I’m Chao-Dong ZHU, from the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Today, I’m honored to join this meeting as one of the Chinese principal investigators. I would like begin by extending to you my cordial greetings and best wishes from my lab. 
Last year, on Nov. 18th, in Sino-German Centre, I observed one of the 3 training courses funded by DFG and gave a welcome address on behalf of Prof. Yan-Fen WANG, Prof. Ke-Ping MA and Prof. Helge and other TreeDi colleagues. There, I shared some fresh experiences and some recent progresses from both BEF and TreeDi. 
The aim of TreeDì is to understand the tree-tree interactions in local neighbourhoods of varying diversity at the community scale. This program keeps many well established topics, protocols as well traditions to promote collaborations from previous BEF program. By bringing together experts and degree students from leading research institutions located in both Germany and China, TreeDì tries to creates a stimulating network of young scholars. I expect it may help more to develop capacity for Ph.D. students. Last year, we organized the kick-off meeting in University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. All PIs and students gave talks about their research projects as well as dissertation topics. We also organized the field trip to BEF-China platform to demonstrate what we have collaborated in previous 10 years and how we shall carry out research in next a few years. Definitely, there were several different and exciting new components popping up besides some challenges during and after the trip. Some questions were solved after PIs and students talked to each other to share their ideas. Now, there are more on-site experiments by all TreeDi members.
So far, I think it is very successful to set up several novel topics besides other ones from previous BEF projects. For example, one of the Ph.D. students, Mr. Ming-Qiang WANG, sampled more than 8000 caterpillars following advices from Dr. Andreas Schult, Dr. Douglas Chesters and myself. He imagined many challenges before he went to work at the sites. After he went into the forest, he faced even more in large sampling, large sequencing and data analyses. However, with previous experiences from BEF experiments, with tremendous helps from his lab brothers and sisters, he overcame many problems and learnt a lot from many other people. For example, Douglas taught him on species delimitation starting from Linux system to per script, Dr. Andreas passed him fresh ideas of TreeDi program as well as ecological data analyses. These skills might be learnt by reading journal papers. But, Mingqing understands them more efficiently by doing real projects. In this TreeDi program, I think all participants not only learn valuable things from their advisers, lab members, but also share your ideas/approaches from those working on different topics. 
So, TreeDì features an international qualification programm involving an intensive Chinese-German cultural exchange during a 6-month academic visit in the partners’ countries, a joint PhD advisory committee (PAC) composed of Chinese and German experts and unique offers to meet, study and discuss with leading scientists on biodiversity, ecosystem function and relevant topics. I’m honored to join the PAC for Mr. Perttu and trying to host him in my stay to examine samples in my lab during his project. With mutual visits, students on systematics/evolution might borrow in a lot from ecological labs while those on ecology can be ready for more accurate species delimitation or phylogenetic inferences.
From this program, I can feel that we are working together in running the exciting workshop to strengthen links between established scientists, to bring together excellent expertise on species interactions to train the next generational young scientists. I’m sure, with great contributions from all scientists and students, all participants, especially those young people will enjoy this program and find your way to develop your own projects and career in near future. 
With this chance, I would like to introduce recent programs funded by Chinese Academy of Sciences. UCAS hosted some joint studentship, funding several here in this TreeDi program. These students will stay in labs in Germany for a year after that sampling seasons in China. Besides, CAS welcome more international scholars by the CAS President's International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI). For young scientists, PIFI supports those who would like to work in more than 120 institutions for 2 to 24 months as postdoc researchers. It’s renewable up to twice. Dr. Douglas was visiting my lab as a postdoc, and later funded by PIFI for several years. Now, he got the position as an associate professor after strong competition in the Institute of Zoology. He has been successfully supported by two normal grants by National Natural Science Foundation, China. Besides, established scientists can also be funded to visit institutions for 2 weeks to 2 months. Just a few days ago, CAS updated the program to call 3 times a year to recruit coming scholars. I think it is really a valuable chance for young scientists, especially those in this program, who can develop their own projects with Chinese principal investigators.
Finally, I wish you all the success for the program. Hope you all enjoy your stay at UCAS and your trips to Xingangshan!
Thanks!