Dr. Hong Qian
Associate Curator of Botany

Research and Collections Center
Illinois State Museum
1011 East Ash Street  
Springfield, IL 62703, USA

Phone: (217) 782-2621 (Office)
E-mail: hqian@museum.state.il.us
http://www.metasequoia.org/hong.htm

Research Interests

His research interest lies at the interface of ecology and biogeography, and involves a wide range of spatial scales.  In particular, he is interested in biodiversity, biogeography, plant community ecology, and plant systematics.  His research in biodiversity focuses on the understanding of biodiversity patterns at all spatial scales from the globe to the microcosm.  At a larger scale, he is interested in searching for the factors that have caused the current intercontinental patterns of vascular plant species richness in the Northern Hemisphere.  At a smaller scale, he investigates how species coexist at the community level.  Because many current patterns in biodiversity and geographical range exist due to the phylogenetic history of the species or taxa at a higher level, he is particularly interested in exploring how phylogenetic relationships match global biodiversity patterns.  His biogeography work falls into both historical and ecological biogeography.  His research in historical biogeography focuses on spatial pattern analyses of the Northern Hemisphere vascular plants within and between continents.  He has a keen interest in understanding the effect of tectonic plate movement on the current biogeographical relationships among continents.  He is also interested in knowing how current patterns in the geographical range of vascular plants in the Northern Hemisphere are related to phylogenetic (evolutionary) patterns across a wide range of different taxonomic groups.  His research in the area of plant community ecology involves ecosystem classification, the descriptive and correlative analysis of vegetation - environment relationships, and species diversity patterns at the community level.  He is especially interested in investigating similarities and differences in a variety of community attributes such as structure, species diversity, and the composition of functional types between plant communities of similar climates in geographically widely separate areas such as eastern Asia and eastern North America.  His recent work on plant systematics focuses on biodiversity informatics.  He has authored over 40 papers published in various peer-reviewed journals such as Am. Nat., Ann. Bot., Can. J. Bot., Int. J. Plant Sci., J. Biogeogr., J. Veg. Sci., Nature, Oikos, Plant Ecol., Taxon, and Vegetatio.

Recent Publications  

Qian, H. 2001. Floristic analysis of vascular plant genera of North America north of Mexico: spatial patterning of phytogeography. Journal of Biogeography 28:525-534.

Qian, H. and R.E. Ricklefs. 2000. Large-scale processes and the Asian bias in temperate plant species diversity. Nature 407: 180-182.

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