Wengang Kang

My Ph.D. research worked on the Nam Co (~4,700 m), the second largest (~1920 km²) saline lake on the Tibetan Plateau. We focused on ecology of phytoplankton and diatoms at different spatial and temporal scales, from regional surveys of aquatic ecosystems e.g. Nam Co, nearby ponds and streams, to paleoecological investigations addressed at the reconstruction of lake environmental and ecological evolution during the last centuries to millennia. Specifically, combining modern investigation and sedimentary proxies (diatoms and pigments) as key indicators for reconstructing variations in hydrological balance (past lake level) and lake water quality (salinity and trophic state), trying to characterize the ecology of living diatoms and to interpret the paleoenvironmental changes of the lake reflected by sediment sequences. The final goal of the research is to improve prediction of future lake vulnerability and evolution within a context of increasing human stress and climate change, based on the study of lake responses to past environmental changes in the Tibetan Plateau.

• In summer of 2018 and 2019, we conducted fieldwork for collecting water and sediment samples in Lake Nam Co and near steams and ponds in the central Tibetan Plateau.
• During the 2014-2017, I have sampled and/or cored at 23 lakes in the Yunnan Plateau, China.

• Diatom morphology, taxonomy and ecology
• Paleoecology and climate change
• Limnological and paleolimnological sampling
• Environmental and ecological statistics with R and MATLAB® (i.e. multivariable analysis)

• Workshop “proposal Writing” & “Funding Opportunities for PostDocs” (mentor: Schepers / Career Service TUBS), 3^rd September 2020 (online)
• Biostatistical Consultation (mentor: Ludwig Hothorn), 4^th September 2020 (online workshop)
• Communicating Science in English (mentor: Robert Spicer), 31^th August – 5^th September 2020 (online workshop).
• Graphic design for Geoscientists (mentor: Dorothee Post), 13^th August, 2020 (online course).
• 16^th advanced ecology summer school: Coastal ecology and biodiversity, 2^nd -11^th August, 2020, Fudan University, Shanghai, China (online workshop).
• Eukaryotic metabarcoding course (Physalia Courses, mentor: Dr. Vasco Elbrecht & Dr. Daniel Marquina), 3^rd-7^th February 2020, Berlin, Germany.
• 2^nd TransTiP Summer School (TPE & TransTiP Science & Technology Training), Sino-German Research Training Group IRTG 2309, Chengdu, China, 12^th – 23^rd August 2019.
• R Beginner’s Course (mentor: Dagmar Söndgerath & Anett Schibalski), 18 July, 2019, Braunschweig, Germany.
• Workshop “Chironomids as paleoenvironmental indicators in high mountain ecosystems” (mentor: Dr. Julieta Massaferro), 13-16^th May 2019, Braunschweig.
• GESEP SCHOOL 2019 at Universität Köln (Chairman: Ulrich Harms), 20^th-21^st, 2019, including lectures and exercises in lake sediment drilling, wireline coring techniques, core processing and correlation, chronology techniques and age model development.
• MATLAB® Recipes for Earth Sciences (mentor: Dr. Martin H. Trauth), University of Potsdam, Germany, 18^th -22^nd February 2019. The course program has included an introduction to the univariate, bivariate and multivate statistics, time series analysis and signal processing, the analysis of digital elevation models, gridding and contouring, and image processing ad analysis.
• 1^st TransTiP Summer School, Sino-German Research Training Group IRTG 2309, Beijing & Lhasa, China, 23^rd -29^th June, 2018.
• GIS and Remote Sensing, Sino-German Research Training Group IRTG 2309, Braunschweig, Germany, 4^th -6^th April 2018.
• International Workshop on Social-Ecological Resilience of Freshwater Systems in the Anthropocene, Nanjing, China, 8^th-10^th July, 2017.
• The Aquatic Transitions working group for 3rd workshop of South East Asia-Oceania, University of Nottingham, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 15^th-17^th February 2017.
• The Species Distribution Modelling Workshop of the 7th Advanced Field Course in Ecology and Conservation (mentor: Dr. Alice C. Hughes), Xishuang Banna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 12^th-15^th Oct. 2015.
• The Regime shift workshop and Aquatic Transitions working group workshop for the International Paleolimnology Symposium, Lanzhou University, China, August 3^rd 2015

(Co-)First author/ Corresponding author

• Kang W., Anslan S., Börner N. & Schwalb A. (2021). Diatom metabarcoding and microscopic analyses from sediment samples at Lake Nam Co, Tibet: The effect of sample-size and bioinformatics on the identified communities. Ecological Indicators, 121, 107070 (First-author)
• Anslan S, Rad M A, Buckel J…Wengang K. et al (2020). Reviews and syntheses: How do abiotic and biotic processes respond to climatic variations at the Nam Co catchment (Tibetan Plateau)? Biogeosciences, 17, 1261–1279 (Co-first-author)
• Kang, W., Chen, G., Wang, J., Huang, L., Wang, L., Li, R., ... & Smol, J. P. (2019). Assessing the impact of long-term changes in climate and atmospheric deposition on a shallow alpine lake from southeast Tibet. Science of The Total Environment, 650, 713-724.
• Kang W G, Chen G J, Wang J Y, Hu K, Tao J S, Liu Y Y, Chen X L, Huang L P, Zhao S Y (2017). Identification of the long-term patterns of catchment development and diatom community changes in Xihu Lake, Dali, Yunnan, China. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology, 28(3): 1001-1012. (in Chinese)

Co-author

• Nannan Li, Mengzhen Li, Dorothy Sack, Wengang Kang, Lina Song, Yue Yang, Yazhuo Zong, Dongmei Jie, Diatom evidence for mid-Holocene peatland water-table variations and their possible link to solar forcing. Science of The Total Environment, 2020, 138272
• Wang, J., Chen, G., Kang, W., Hu, K., & Wang, L (2019) Impoundment intensity determines temporal patterns of hydrological fluctuation, carbon cycling and algal succession in a dammed lake of Southwest China. Water research, 2019,148:162-175. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2018.10.032
• Lei Wang, Guangjie Chen, Wengang Kang, Jiaoyuan Wang, Yuanyuan Liu, Li Chen (2018) Sediment evidence of industrial leakage-induced asynchronous changes in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and trace metals from a sub-trophic lake, southwest China. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 25(13): 13035-13047. DOI: doi.org10.1007/s11356-018-1537-x
• Li R., Chen G., Kang W., Chen L., Wang J., Chen X., Liu Y., Feng Z., Zhang T (2018) Spatio-temporal variations of diatom community and their relationships with water environment in Fuxian Lake. Environment Science, 39 (7): 3168-3178 (in Chinese)
• Wang J., Chen G., Kang W., Hu K., Chen X., Wu F., Zhu Q., Feng Z (2018) Spatial distributions and environmental control of diatom functional groups in sediments of Haixi Lake, Southwest China. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology, 29(9): 3120-3130 (in Chinese)
• Zhu Q., Kong L., Chen L., Wang X., Wang J., Kang W., Li R., Liang H., Chen G (2018) Spatial distribution of cladoceran assemblages in surface sediments of shallow lakes in Yunnan. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology, 29(9): 3111-3119 (in Chinese)
• Liang H., Huang L., Chen G., Kang W., Liu Y., Wang J., Zhu Q., Liu S., & Deng Y (2018) Patterns of Carbon and Nitrogen Stable Isotopes and Elemental Composition of Lake Primary Producers and Zooplankton in Eastern Yunnan. Journal of Lake Sciences, 30(5): pp. 1400–1412 (in Chinese)
• Zhang H, Chang F, Duan L， Zhang Y, Meng H, Wen X, Wu H, Lu Z, Bi R, Zhang Y, Zhao S, Kang W (2017) Water quality characteristics and variations of Lake Dian. Advances in Earth Science, 32 (6): 651-659 (in Chinese)
• Hu K, Chen G J, Huang L P, Chen X L, Liu Y Y, Lu H B, Tao J S, Kang W G (2017). Sediment Records of Extreme Droughts and Ecological Consequences in Yuxian Lake, Southeast Yunnan. Acta Hydrobiological Sinica, DOI: 10.7541/2017. (in Chinese)
• Tao J S, Chen G J, Chen X L, Chen L, Huang L P, Liu Y Y, Shi H B, Hu K, Wang J Y, Kang W G (2016). Long-term pattern of diatom community responses to water pollution and hydrological regulation in Yangzong Lake. Geographical Research, 35(10). (in Chinese)

Oral Presentations

• A millennial record from Nam Co: Lithology, chronology and environmental changes  in summer school, 2^nd September, 2020 (online)
• “Paleolimnology in the Anthropocene world: sediment records of change from a highly stressed lake in Southwest China” in the 10^th INTECOL International Wetlands Conference, Changshu, China, 19^th-24^th Sept. 2016.
• “Ecological responses to eutrophication and water-level fluctuation inferred from diatom communities over the last 200 years in Lake Xihu, Yunnan” in the 13^th International Paleolimnology Symposium (IPS 2015), Lanzhou, China, 4^th-7^th Oct. 2015.

Posters

• “Controlling processes of diatom assemblages and their distribution in Lake Nam Co, Tibetan Plateau” in the INQUA, Dublin, Ireland, 22^nd July – 1^st August 2019.
• “Climate and catchment processes modulated the impact of atmospheric deposition on nitrogen cycling and algal shift in a subtropical alpine lake, SE Tibet” in the IPA-IAL conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 18^th -21^st Jun. 2018.
• “Long-term pattern of diatom community changes response to catchment development at Xihu Lake” in the 8th ISOME: International Symposium on Modern Ecology, Tianjin, China, 11^th-14^th Jun. 2015.
• The 23^rd International Diatom Symposium, Nanjing, China, 7^th-13^th Sept. 2014