经过多年的学科整合和创新建设，在相关部门的支持下，研究组在我国山地生态系统评估、退化山地的生态修复、应对气候变化、农林牧复合系统构建的科学研究与试验示范等方面都取得了重要进展。论文发表的数量和质量都成绩斐然，从2011年只有SCI论文14篇，到2012年25篇，2013年53篇，2014年80篇，2015年有88篇，2016年有60余篇，2017年已经发表论文近40篇。另外，研究组在促进我国与中亚、南亚、东南亚和非洲各个国家的国际交流合作方面做了大量的工作，得到了我国政府和科研单位的好评。2016年，有两人获得中国科学院外籍青年科学家资助，一人获得中国科学院-第三世界科学院(CAS-TWAS)院长奖学金；研究组已经成为开展亚洲山地生态系统研究的中坚力量。主要研究人员如下：
Dr. Yankai is an ecological restoration ecologist, with a background in the ecology of plant communities, mined land reclamation, and lake management. He currently holds a postdoctoral position at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His current interests focus on the revegetation of phosphorus mining sites, and on phosphorus pollution and phosphorous budget analysis of Lake Dianchi, Kunming, China.
Dr. Sehroon Khan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science, which he joined in November 2014. He was previously an assistant professor at the Institute of Biotechnology and Genetics Engineering, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan. Dr. Khan works primarily on sustainable agriculture, environmental protection, biopesticides engineering, plant protection and plastics biodegradation. His research focuses on the isolation and identification of entomopathogenic, phytopathogenic or plastic-degrading fungi and their utilization against insect pests, plant pathogens and plastic waste. Dr. Khan is currently investigating the activation of plant basal immunity through the isolation of elicitor proteins from phytopathogenic fungi/oomycetes as an environmentally sustainable strategy for pest and disease prevention. He is expert in the isolation, identification and culturing of mycoparasitic/hyperparasitic fungi from diseased plants in preparation for their use as biocontrol of phytopathogenic fungi. Dr. Khan’s recent and current projects include research on cloning the elicitor/insect toxin protein gene in endophytic bacteria (for heterologous secretion expression), and characterization of the engineered bacterial strain on biological control; and investigation of plastics biodegradation using crickets, mealworm, fungi and bacteria. In short, he devoted his life for sustainable agriculture and green environment.
Dr Fiona Worthy is a post-doctoral researcher at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has previously worked in the areas of seed predation, plant-animal interactions, mountain ecology and human-wildlife conflict. She is currently working within the multi-national 'Ecological Calendars' project, which is investigating the impact of climate change on indigenous societies in the Pamir and Himalaya regions. She will be conducting experimental work on the projected future range of plant species; including a soil seed bank study and a plant translocation experiment.
