I am a PhD candidate in the Conservation Ecology Group at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and a researcher in Center for East Asian-Australasian Flyway Studies at Beijing Forestry University (China), under the supervision by Theunis Piersma (RuG), and co-supervised by Zhijun Ma (Fudan University, China) and Guangchun Lei (BFU). My study focuses on understanding the relationship between shorebirds and macrobenthos in the intertidal area along Chinese coast, in order to study the influences of shellfish aquaculture on shorebirds and to explore the rational management of aquaculture to better protect shorebirds in East Asian - Australasian Flyway.

From 2015, I started my field work in the coast of China, from few sites visited at the beginning, to now covered 32 sites in 2021, I aim to conduct a long-term systematic monitoring of all important stopover sites of shorebirds along the Chinese coast. At each site, we sampled macrobenthos to assess the biodiversity and also monitored how shellfish aquaculture affects the change of biodiversity. We also monitored the habitat utilization of shorebirds at each site, by filming their behavior, collecting droppings… Combining the bird research and macrobenthos study, we monitored how shorebirds adapt the intertidal habitats in China where was occupied by human activities.

Please find more information about my research at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/He-Bo-Peng