Department of Ecology 

The Department of Ecology was established in 2002, on the base of the Teaching-Research Section of Landscape Ecology in the Department of Urban and Environmental Sciences. The Department first recruited undergraduate students in 2003, and started its doctoral program in ecology in 2011. The post-doctoral research center for ecology was found in 2013. Currently, the department has 14 full-time faculty, including 7 professors, 4 associate professors and one senior staff, and 6 part-time professors from China and abroad. Among the professors are 1 academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The undergraduate courses of the department include plant ecology, animal ecology, microbial ecology and other main ecological sciences, with emphasis on the importance of interdisciplinary sciences among biological sciences, earth sciences, environmental sciences and information science. The undergraduate education aims at enhancing both basic and applied knowledge, as well as at training practical ability in a wide range of ecological sciences.

The graduate program in the department of Ecology aims at promoting the scientific independence and providing a solid foundation, necessary skill and capabilities for professional career in relevant ecological sciences.

The department of Ecology conducts researches in climate change, biodiversity conservation, vegetation ecology, plant physiological ecology, belowground ecology, landscape ecology, ecological planning, and urban ecology. The department emphasizes a multidisciplinary perspective on climate change through integrating knowledge from plant ecology, soil science and earth sciences.

The department has significant equipment from both laboratory experiments and field investigation for physiological plant ecology, pollen analysis, tree-ring analysis, plant morphology and anatomy, plant and soil chemical analysis, vegetation quantitative analysis and ecological remote sensing. As part of the MOE (Ministry of Education) Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes (LESP), the department holds extensive experimental installations for biogeochemistry studies. Moreover, the department has two stations for its field education and scientific research: Saihanba Station, Peking University Observatory System for Ecology and the Environment (PKU-OSEE) in Hebei Province, and the three Gorges-Dalaoling station in Hubei Province.