Chuliang Song

Chuliang Song

(Incoming) Asssistant Professor

University of California, Los Angeles

Biography

I am a theoretical and computational ecologist. My research program aims to forecast the dynamics of ecological systems under unforeseen environmental conditions, and under incomplete information about the entire system. To this end, my work centers on developing rigorous theory through interdisciplinary tools, devising monitoring-applicable metrics, and validating these approaches with empirical data from a broad range of ecosystems.

I will join the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an Assistant Professor in Summer 2024. I am currently a postdoc with Jonathan Levine at Princeton University. I was previously a postdoc co-supervised by Andrew Gonzalez at McGill University and Marie-Josée Fortin at University of Toronto. I received a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT under the supervision of Serguei Saavedra, and a BS in Mathematics from Zhejiang University under the supervision of Yang-Yu Liu.

I am currently a subject-matter editor at Ecological Monographs and a data editor at Ecology Letters. I have served as a council member of Ecological Society of America and as the secretary of Theoretical Ecology Section.

You can reach me via email: clsong.ecology AT gmail DOT com.

Interests

  • Species coexistence
  • Priority effects
  • Spatial ecology
  • Effective biomonitoring

Education

  • PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2016 - 2020

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • BSc in Mathematics, 2013 - 2016

    Zhejiang University

Projects

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Biomonitoring from incomplete surverys

Biomonitoring from incomplete surverys

How to make robust assessment when only small subsets of ecosystems can be monitored

Conceptual unification of theoretical approaches

Conceptual unification of theoretical approaches

Under what conditions different theoretical approaches tell a similar story, and what can be learned when they do not coincide.

Discontinuity and predictability of ecological assembly

Discontinuity and predictability of ecological assembly

Exploring the full landscape of priority effects with graph theory and algebraic topology

Species coexistence under changing environment

Species coexistence under changing environment

How the architecture of species interactions affects species coexistence in fluctuating environemnts

Statistical physics for ecological time series

Statistical physics for ecological time series

Combing theory and theory to identify the structure of ecological dynamics

Publications

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(2024). Trophic Tug-of-War: Coexistence Mechanisms within and across Trophic Levels. Ecology Letters.

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(2023). Landscape ecological consolidation intensifies zoonotic host diversity loss and disease transmission in human habitats. submitted.

(2023). Soil microbial influences over coexistence in multispecies plant communities in a subtropical forest. submitted.

(2023). Mean species responses predict effects of environmental change on coexistence. Ecology Letters.

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(2023). Reconceptualizing beta diversity: a hypervolume geometric approach. submitted.

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(2023). Rapid monitoring of ecological persistence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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(2022). Metapopulation persistence can be inferred from incomplete surveys. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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(2022). Generalism drives abundance: a computational causal discovery approach. PLOS Computational Biology.

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(2021). Untangling the complexity of priority effects in multispecies communities. Ecology Letters.

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(2021). Synthesizing the effects of individual-level variation on coexistence. Ecological Monographs.

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(2021). Understanding the emergence of contingent and deterministic exclusion in multispecies communities. Ecology Letters.

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(2021). Coexistence holes characterize the assembly and disassembly of multispecies systems. Nature Ecology and Evolution (* equal contibution).

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(2021). Merging dynamical and structural indicators to measure resilience in multispecies systems. Journal of Animal Ecology (* equal contibution).

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(2020). Structural stability: concepts, methods and applications. Biodiversity Science (in Chinese).

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(2020). Telling ecological networks apart by their structure: An environment-dependent approach. PLOS Computational Biology.

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(2020). Towards a Probabilistic Understanding About the Context-Dependency of Species Interactions. Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

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(2020). Disentangling the effects of external perturbations on coexistence and priority effects. Journal of Ecology.

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(2019). Accelerating the emergence of order in swarming systems. Advances in Complex Systems.

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(2019). On the Consequences of the Interdependence of Stabilizing and Equalizing Mechanisms. The American Naturalist (* equal contibution).

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(2019). Beware z-scores. Journal of Animal Ecology.

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(2018). A guideline to study the feasibility domain of multi-trophic and changing ecological communities. Journal of Theoretical Biology.

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(2018). Rethinking the importance of the structure of ecological networks under an environment-dependent framework. Ecology & Evolution (* equal contribution).

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(2018). Structural stability as a consistent predictor of phenological events. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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(2018). Structural changes within trophic levels are constrained by within-family assembly rules at lower trophic levels. Ecology Letters.

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(2018). Will a small randomly-assembled community be feasible and stable?. Ecology.

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(2017). Why are some plant-pollinator networks more nested than others?. Journal of Animal Ecology.

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(2016). Existence of positive solutions for an approximation of stationary mean-field games. Involve, a Journal of Mathematics.

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Join us!

Our lab currently has openings for graduate students and postdoc scholars!

For prospective graduate students:

The lab has openings for 1-2 PhD students who are passionate about ecology with a strong quantitative background. The lab accepts students through the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UCLA. The deadline for application is December 1st. More information about the program can be found on this page www.eeb.ucla.edu/doctoral-program/.

Our lab believes in fostering a space where students can chase their research curiosities and passions. To ensure a symbiotic mentor-mentee relationship, we hope your interests resonate with one or more of the following: species coexistence, priority effects/community assembly, eco-evolutionary dynamics, ecological time series, and spatial pattern analysis.

Selecting an advisor that suits your interests and needs is critical to being happy and successful. I’d appreciate the opportunity to connect before applying. To start a conversation, please drop me an email with:

  • Your CV
  • An unofficial transcript
  • Research interests (including why you want to work in this lab)

For prospective postdoc scholars:

If you’re interested in joining the lab, please email me a description of your research interests, goals for your postdoc and a CV with contact information for 2-3 references to start a conversation.

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