Dr Xinqiang Xi

Academic Visitor

  • email xixq@nju.edu.cn

Research Interests

I am interested in how the diversity of parasitoids is maintained in nature. I combine field investigations, mesocosm experiments and ecological modelling to answer this question.

My interest in parasitoid diversity began when I was a PhD student in Prof. Shucun Sun’s lab in Chinese Academy of Sciences. I have been working on an “Asteraceae plants-Tephritid flies-Parasitoids” tri-trophic food web in the alpine meadow of eastern Tibet plateau for ~8 years. My work has revealed the importance of plant-mediated resource partitioning between parasitoids in promoting their coexistence, and how the asymmetrical interactions in this network lead to severe seed loss for the dominant host plant species.

I have been an independent fellow in the Department of Ecology, Nanjing University since 2021. We are now working on “Drosophila-Parasitoid” food webs in a semi-natural forest ecosystem in the city of Nanjing. Ongoing studies in the lab are exploring (i) the role of phenotypic plasticity in mitigating the impact of biotic and abiotic environmental change on Drosophila flies and parasitoids; (ii) the causes and ecological consequences of changes in the sex ratio of co-occurring parasitoids; and (iii) the relationship between parasitoid species diversity and population dynamics of their Drosophila hosts.

Selected Publications

Xi, Xinqiang, W. Zhou, Z. Li, L. Hu, Y. Dong, K. J. Niklas, and S. Sun (2021). Rare plant species are at a disadvantage when both herbivory and pollination interactions are considered in an alpine meadow. Journal of Animal Ecology 97:1647-1654.

Xi, Xinqiang, Y. Yang, J. M. Tylianakis, S. Yang, Y. Dong, and S. Sun (2020). Asymmetric interactions of seed–predation network contribute to rare-species advantage. Ecology 101:e03050. .

Xi, Xinqiang, B. Zhang, Y. Wang, D. P. Vázquez, Y. Dong, and S. Sun (2020). Experimental reduction of plant abundance changes interaction frequency of a tri-trophic micro-food web: contrasting responses of generalists and specialists. Journal of Ecology 108:415-423.

Liao, J., Xi, Xinqiang, D. Bearup, and S. Sun (2020). Metacommunity robustness of plant–fly–wasp tripartite networks with specialization to habitat loss. Ecology 101:e03071.

Xi, Xinqiang, Y. Dong, X. Tian, H. Xu, Q. Zhou, K. J. Niklas, and S. Sun (2018). Domestic honeybees affect the performance of pre-dispersal seed predators in an alpine meadow. Oecologia 187:113-122.

Xi, Xinqiang, Y. Yang, Y. Yang, M. Segoli, and S. Sun (2017). Plant-mediated resource partitioning by coexisting parasitoids. Ecology 98:1660-1670.

Xi, Xinqiang, X. Wu, S. Nylin, and S. Sun (2016). Body size response to warming: time of the season matters in a tephritid fly. Oikos 125:386-394.