Xu, Chi

Chi Xu is a professor of ecology at Nanjing University, China. His research focuses on unravelling mechanisms underlying complex dynamics of ecological systems. His current work aims at elucidating the mechanisms shaping resilience and triggering tipping points in a wide range of (socio)ecological systems, with particular respect to nonlinear responses to climate change. His work is profoundly cooperative and combines remote sensing, spatial analyses, statistical models, dynamical models, and experiments. His work covers a wide range of ecosystems including arid, semiarid, tropical, boreal and aquatic ecosystems in China, Europe and Americas.

Selected Publications

2023

Lenton, T. M.*, Xu, C.*, Abrams, J. F., Ghadiali, A., Loriani, S., Sakschewski, B., Zimm, C., Ebi, K. L., Dunn, R. R., Svenning J.-C., Scheffer, M. (2023). Quantifying the human cost of global warming. Nature Sustainability. 6: 1237-1247.

Zhang, K., Yan, J., He, Q., Xu, C.*, Van de Koppel, J., Wang, B., Cui, B.*, Liu, Q.-X. (2023). Self-organized mud cracking amplifies the resilience of an iconic “Red Beach” salt marsh. Science Advances. 9: eabq3520.

Scheffer, M., van Nes, E. H., Kemp, L., Kohler, T. A., Lenton, T. M., Xu, C. (2023). The vulnerability of aging states: A survival analysis across premodern societies. PNAS. 120: e2218834120.

Teng, S.N.*, Svenning, J.-C., Xu, C.* (2023). Large mammals and trees in eastern monsoonal China: anthropogenic losses since the Late Pleistocene and restoration prospects in the Anthropocene. Biological Reviews. 98: 1607-1632.

Rockström, J., Gupta, J., Qin, D., Lade, S. J., Abrams, J. F. et al. (2023). Safe and just Earth system boundaries. Nature. 619: 102-111.

Zhao, Q.*, Van den Brink, P. J., Xu, C., Wang, S., Clark, A. T., Karakoç, C., Sugihara, G., Widdicombe, C. E., Atkinson, A., Matsuzaki, S.-i. S., Shinohara, R., He, S., Wang, Y. X. G., De Laender, F. (2023). Relationships of temperature and biodiversity with stability of natural aquatic food webs. Nature Communications. 14: 3507.

Rotbarth, R.*, Van Nes, E. H., Scheffer, M., Jepsen, J. U., Vindstad, O. P. L., Xu, C., Holmgren, M. (2023). Northern expansion is not compensating for southern declines in North American boreal forests. Nature Communications. 14: 3373.

Yin, S., Li, N., Xu, W., Becker, D. J., de Boer, W. F., Xu, C., et al. (2023). Functional traits explain waterbirds' host status, subtype richness, and community‐level infection risk for avian influenza. Ecology Letters. 26: 1780-1791.

Stavi, I., Xu, C., Argaman, E. (2023). Climate-smart forestry in the world’s drylands: A review of challenges and opportunities. The Anthropocene Review. 20530196231182354.

Sun, Y. F., Guo, Y., Xu, C., Liu, Y., Zhao, X., Liu, Q., Jeppesen, E., Wang, H., Xie, P. (2023). Will “Air Eutrophication” Increase the Risk of Ecological Threat to Public Health?. Environmental Science & Technology. 57: 10512-10520.

Li, L., Teng, S. N., Zhang, Y., Li, Y., Wang, H., Santana, J., Reino, L., Abades, S., Svenning, J.-C., Xu, C.* (2023). Neighbourhood landscape context shapes local species richness patterns across continents. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 32: 867-880.

Qian, G., Zhang, L., Chen, Y., Xu, C. (2023). Fish microplastic ingestion may induce tipping points of aquatic ecosystems. Journal of Animal Ecology.

Wu, D.#, Xu, C.#, Wang, S., Zhang, L.*, Kortsch, S. (2023). Why are biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships so elusive? Trophic interactions may amplify ecosystem function variability. Journal of Animal Ecology. 92: 367-376.

Ma, X., Zheng, G.*, Xu, C., Yang, L., Geng, Q., Li, J., Qiao, Y. (2023). Mapping fine-scale building heights in urban agglomeration with spaceborne lidar. Remote Sensing of Environment. 285: 113392.

2022

Wang, B., Zhang, K., Liu, Q.-X.*, He, Q., Van de Koppel, J., Teng, S. N., Miao, X., Liu, M., Bertness, M. D., Xu, C.* (2022). Long-distance facilitation of coastal ecosystem structure and resilience. PNAS. 119: e2123274119.

Kemp, L.*, Xu, C., Depledge, J., Ebi, K. L., Gibbins, G., Kohler, T. A., Rockström, J., Scheffer, M., Schellnhuber, H. J., Steffen, W., Lenton, T. M. (2022). Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios. PNAS. 119: e2108146119.

Chen, B.J.W., Teng, S.N., Zheng, G., Cui, L., Li, S.-P., Staal, A., Eitel, J.U.H., Crowther, T.W., Berdugo, M., Mo, L., Ma, H., Bialic-Murphy, L., Zohner, C.M., Maynard, D., Averill, C., Zhang, J., He, Q., Evers, J.B., Anten, N.P.R., Yizhaq, H., Stavi, I., Argaman, E., Basson, U., Xu, Z., Zhang, M.-J., Niu, K., Liu, Q.-X., Xu, C.* (2022). Inferring plant-plant interactions using remote sensing. Journal of Ecology. 110: 2268-2287.

Huang, H., Xu, C., Liu, Q.-X.* (2022). 'Social distancing’ between plants may amplify coastal restoration at early stage. Journal of Applied Ecology. 59: 188-198.

Chen, S., Zhang, Y.*, Xu, C., Cao, L., Huang, Z.Y., Li, C., Chen, B.J., Lu, C., Xu, W., Song, Y., de Boer, W.F. (2022). Neighbourhood threats: landscape context and anthropogenic changes can trigger waterbird population collapse. Landscape Ecology. 37: 3141-3158.

Wang, H., Wang, P., Xu, C., Sun, Y., Shi, L., Zhou, L., Jeppesen, E., Chen, J., Xie, P*. (2022). Can the “10-year fishing ban” rescue biodiversity of the Yangtze River? The Innovation. 3: 100235.

2021

Mirza, M. U.*, Xu, C., Van Bavel, B., van Nes, E. H., Scheffer, M.* (2021). Global inequality remotely sensed. PNAS. 118: e1919913118.

Ren, J., Chen, J., Xu, C., Van de Koppel, J., Thomsen, M. S., Qiu, S., Cheng, F., Song, W., Liu, Q.-X., Xu, C., Bai, J., Zhang, Y., Cui, B., Bertness, M. D., Silliman, B. R., Li, B., He, Q.* (2021) An invasive species erodes the performance of coastal wetland protected areas. Science Advances. 7: eabi8943.

Li, J., Holmgren, M.*, Xu, C.* (2021). Greening vs browning? Surface water cover mediates how tundra and boreal ecosystems respond to climate warming. Environmental Research Letters. 16: 104004.

Wang, H.#, Xu, C.#, Liu, Y.#, Jeppesen, E., Svenning, J. C., Wu, J., Zhang, W., Zhou, T., Wang, P., Nangombe, S., Ma, J., Duan, H., Fang, J. Xie, P*. (2021). From unusual suspect to serial killer: Cyanotoxins boosted by climate change may jeopardize megafauna. The Innovation. 2: 100092.

Wang, H., Wang, P., Zhao, X., Zhang, W., Li, J., Xu, C., Xie, P.* (2021). What triggered the Asian elephant's northward migration across southwestern Yunnan? The Innovation. 2: 100142.

2020

Xu, C.*, Kohler, T. A., Lenton, T. M., Svenning, J.-C., Scheffer, M.* (2020). Future of the human climate niche. PNAS. 117: 11350-11355.

Teng, S.N.*, Xu, C.*, Teng, L., Svenning, J.-C.* (2020). Long-term effects of cultural filtering on megafauna species distributions across China. PNAS. 117: 486-493.

Xu, Z.*, Mason, J. A., Xu, C., Yi, S., Bathiany, S., Yizhaq, H., Zhou, Y., Cheng, J., Holmgren, M., Lu, H. (2020). Critical transitions in Chinese dunes during the past 1,2000 years. Science Advances. 6: eaay8020.

Teng, S.N.*, Svenning, J.-C., Santana, J., Reino, L., Abades, S., Xu, C.* (2020). Linking landscape ecology and macroecology by scaling biodiversity in space and time. Current Landscape Ecology Reports. 5: 25-34.

Chen, B.J.W.*, Xu, C.*, Liu, M.S., Huang, Z.Y.X., Zhang, M.J., Tang, J., Anten, N. P. (2020). Neighbourhood-dependent root distributions and the consequences on root separation in arid ecosystems. Journal of Ecology. 108: 635-1648.

2019

Zhao, Q., Van den Brink, P.J.*, Carpentier, C., Wang, Y.X., Rodríguez-Sánchez, P., Xu, C., Vollbrecht, S., Gillissen, F., Vollebregt, M., Wang, S., De Laender, F. (2019). Horizontal and vertical diversity jointly shape food web stability against small and large perturbations. Ecology Letters. 22: 1152-1162.

Zhao, L.-X., Xu, C.*, Ge, Z.-M., Van de Koppel, J., Liu, Q.-X.* (2019). The shaping role of self-organization: linking vegetation patterning, plant traits and ecosystem functioning. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 286: 20182859.

Huang, Z. Y. X.*, Xu, C.*, Van Langevelde, F., Ma, Y., Langendoen, T., Mundkur, T., Si, Y., Tian, H., Kraus, R., Gilbert, M., Han, G., Ji, X., Prins, H., de Boer, W. (2019). Contrasting effects of host species and phylogenetic diversity on the occurrence of HPAI H5N1 in European wild birds. Journal of Animal Ecology. 88: 1044-1053.

Bernardi, R.E.*, Staal, A., Xu, C., Scheffer, M., Holmgren, M. (2019). Livestock Herbivory shapes fire regimes and vegetation structure across the global tropics. Ecosystems. 22: 1457-1465.

2018

Scheffer, M.*, Xu, C.*, Hantson, S., Holmgren, M., Los, S.O., Van Nes, E. H. (2018). A global climate niche for giant trees. Global Change Biology. 24: 2875-2883.

Staal, A., Van Nes, E.H., Hantson, S., Holmgren, M., Dekker, S.C., Pueyo, S., Xu, C., Scheffer, M. (2018). Resilience of tropical tree cover: The roles of climate, fire, and herbivory. Global Change Biology. 24: 5096-5109.

Teng, S. N.*, Xu, C., Sandel, B., Svenning, J.-C. (2018). Effects of intrinsic sources of spatial autocorrelation on spatial regression modelling. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. 9: 363-72.

Luan, X.L., Buyantuev, A., Baur, A.H., Kleinschmit, B., Wang, H., Wei, S., Liu, M., Xu, C.* (2018). Linking greenhouse gas emissions to urban landscape structure: the relevance of spatial and thematic resolutions of land use/cover data. Landscape Ecology. 33: 1211-1224.

2017

Flores, B. M.*, Holmgren, M., Xu, C., Van Nes, E. H., Jakovac, C. C., Mesquita, R. C. G., Scheffer, M. (2017). Floodplains as an Achilles’ heel of Amazonian forest resilience. PNAS. 114: 4442-4446.

Tao, T., Abades, S., Huang, Z., Reino, L., Teng, S., Chen, B., Zhang, Y., Xu. C.*, Svenning, J.-C. (2017). Macroecological factors shape local-scale spatial patterns in agriculturalist settlements. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 284: 20172003.

Reino, L., Ferreira, M., Martínez-Solano, Í., Segurado, P., Xu, C., Barbosa, M. A. (2017). Favourable areas for co-occurrence of parapatric species: Niche conservatism and niche divergence in Iberian tree frogs and midwife toads. Journal of Biogeography. 44: 88-98.

2016 and before

Xu, C.*, Hantson, S., Holmgren, M., Van Nes, E. H., Staal, A., Scheffer, M. (2016). Remotely sensed canopy height reveals three pantropical ecosystem states. Ecology. 97: 2518-2521.

Staal, A.*, Dekker, S. C., Xu, C., Van Nes, E. H. (2016). Bistability, spatial interaction, and the distribution of tropical forests and savannas. Ecosystems. 19: 1080-1091.

Xu, C., Vergnon, R., Cornelissen, J., Hantson, S., Holmgren, M., Van Nes, E. H., Scheffer, M.* (2015). Temperate forest and open landscapes are distinct alternative states as reflected in canopy height and tree cover. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 30: 501-502.

Xu, C.*, Holmgren, M., Van Nes, E. H., Maestre, F. T., Soliveres, S., Berdugo, M., Kefi, S., Marquet, P. A., Abades S., Scheffer, M. (2015). Can we infer plant facilitation from remote sensing? A test across global drylands. Ecological Applications. 25: 1456-1462.

Xu, C.*, Van Nes, E. H., Holmgren, M. Kefi, S., Scheffer, M. (2015). Local facilitation may cause tipping points on a landscape level preceded by early warning indicators. American Naturalist. 186: E81-E90.

Xu, C.*, Chen, B. J. W., Abades, S., Reino, L., Teng, S., Ljungqvist, F. C., Huang, Z.Y.X., Liu, M. (2015). Macroecological factors explain large-scale spatial population patterns of ancient agriculturalists. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 24: 1030-1039.

Scheffer, M.*, Vergnon, R., Cornelissen, J., Hantson, S., Holmgren, M., van Nes, E. H., Xu, C. (2014). Why trees and shrubs but rarely trubs? Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 29: 433-434.

Xu, C., Huang, Z. Y. X., Chi, T., Chen, B. J. W., Zhang, M., Liu, M.* (2014). Can local landscape attributes explain species richness patterns at macroecological scales? Global Ecology and Biogeography. 23: 436-445.

Huang Z. Y. X.*, de Boer W. F., van Langevelde, F., Xu, C., Jebara, K. B., Berlingieri, F., Prins, H. H. (2013). Dilution effect in bovine tuberculosis: risk factors for regional disease occurrence in Africa. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 280: 20130624.

Xu, C., Liu, M.*, Hong, C., Chi, T., An, S., Yang, X. (2012). Temporal variation of characteristic scales in urban landscapes: an insight into the evolving internal structures of China’s two largest cities. Landscape Ecology. 27: 1063-1074.

Xu, C., Liu, M., An, S., Chen, J.M., Yan, P. (2007). Assessing the impact of urbanization on regional net primary productivity in Jiangyin County, China. Journal of Environmental Management. 85: 597-606.

Xu, C., Liu, M.*, Zhang, C., An, S., Yu, W., Chen, J. M. (2007). The spatiotemporal dynamics of rapid urban growth in the Nanjing metropolitan region of China. Landscape Ecology. 22: 925-937.

For more publications with full text: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chi-Xu-8