Ordos Sandland Ecological Research Station - China

The Ordos Sandland Ecological Research Station (OSERS, 39°29'37.6'' N, 110°11'9.4'' E, 1300 m a.s.l.) is located in Yijinhuoluo County, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China. The OSERS is one of the member stations belonging to Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN) and is also one of national field stations belonging to the Chinese National Ecosystem Observation and Research Network (CNERN). The representative ecosystems featured by OSERS are grassland ecosystems in steppe zone. OSERS now has a multi-function building of 2000 m2, an experimental area of 2133.33 hm2, a set of monitoring equipments, an internet service with 10 M flux and able to access digital resource of Chinese Academy of Sciences, especially Institute of Botany. In 2015, NFRS-OGE was successful in conducting all monitoring projects for CERN and CNERN and served about 245 domestic and international researchers and academic visitors, which have worked at the station for more than 2,000 days. In 2015, OSERS was supported by 14 projects from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, CAS and the NNSF of China, published 28 academic papers, among which 22 were indexed by Science Citation Index (SCI), were applying for three patents, and write two monographs. The main work included four aspects as following: 1) Monitoring: field monitoring and laboratory sample analysis tasks of water, soil, atmosphere and biological factors were accomplished on time according to CERN and CNERN requirements; at the same time we cooperated with each CERN sub-center to improve quality control system of stations monitoring data. 2) Research: We made progress in mechanism of plant adaption to desert, leaf litter decomposability, C storage etc. 3) Demonstration: The sandy plant resource was collected, cultured and tamed, and the project “Technology and demonstration of Ordos sandy ecosystem adapting to water stress” was launched. 5) Science Popularization: We offered some science popularizing activities about Sandy Grassland Ecology for more than 200 students.