I am interested in understanding how terrestrial arthropod communities respond and adapt to climate change, and how these community-level changes, in turn, affect ecosystem structure and functioning. I primarily use field experiments to investigate the responses of arthropod communities to environmental change.
My research in Tibetan alpine meadows has shown that experimental warming can reduce the species diversity and biomass of terrestrial arthropod communities. At the same time, predators such as spiders can behaviorally adjust their prey-size preferences, which may help them maintain or even increase their population sizes despite warming-induced changes in prey communities. These findings have led me to become particularly interested in the behavioral and ecological mechanisms that mediate community responses to climate change.
More broadly, I am interested in understanding how ecological communities regulate and reorganize themselves under long-term climate change. In particular, I aim to explore how species interactions, behavioral plasticity, trophic dynamics, and feedback mechanisms contribute to the stability, resilience, and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems in a changing world.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xiaoli-Hu-5?ev=hdr_xprf
