Major Research Areas

The mission of the Department of Ecology & Biodiversity (including the Swire Institute of Marine Science, SWIMS) is to contribute to the understanding, conservation and management of natural environments in Hong Kong, southern China and Asia.

Core topics are wildlife conservation; marine biology (based primarily at SWIMS); microbial diversity and molecular ecology; systematics; and environmental toxicology. The Department places emphasis on Hong Kong and southern China , and uses molecular and field-based approaches.

Ongoing research activities include unraveling the taxonomic relationships among groups of flowering plants and fungi; bioprospecting for novel compounds in fungi; the molecular ecology of extremeophiles in hot springs; radiotelemetery studies of the activities of birds, mammals and endangered turtles; reforestation of degraded hillsides; species reintroduction as a conservation tool in Hong Kong; ecology and conservation of spawning aggregations of marine fishes; intertidal ecology, particularly of rocky shores; growth and behaviour of octopuses and cuttlefish; stable isotope studies of food webs and energy flow in streams; marine ecotoxicology; and bioremediation of pollution by bacteria.