Yanjie Xu（徐燕洁）

Title of Docent awarded on 28 February 2026, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Finland.

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation Group, the Netherlands. Doctoral degree awarded on 6 October 2020.

Doctoral dissertation: Unravelling networks: Causes and consequences of decreasing connectivity in bird migration pathway ↗

Research visit to the Sheldon Lab, Department of Biology, University of Oxford, February–May 2020.

Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Degree awarded on 29 June 2016.

Master’s thesis: The southward autumn migration of waterfowl facilitates transmission of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus.

College of Environmental Science & Engineering, Beijing Forestry University, China. Degree awarded on 1 July 2014.

Bachelor’s dissertation: Spatial and Temporal Analysis: Water Footprint of crop production in Beijing.

Research on DISEASE ON WINGS, waterbird restoration in Finland, and Scenarios for Protecting European Avian Redistributions (SPEAR).

Postdoctoral work continued part-time from December 2024 through May 2025. A visiting-researcher affiliation continues following the postdoctoral appointment.

MSc-level course: thematic lectures and R exercises on understanding climate change impacts on birds.

MSc-level course: thematic lectures and R exercises on the effects of climate change on biodiversity, using birds as an example taxon.

MSc-level course: hypothesis-oriented statistical skills for ecological data analysis.

MSc-level course: applied skills for geospatial analysis in ecological projects.

• Lijia Wen — Migratory-crane ecology and conservation in Asian flyways. Host supervision, Beijing Forestry University, 2024–2025.
• Valeria Valanne — Conservation of huntable bird species (HABITRACK). Co-supervision, University of Helsinki, from 2025.
• Rebecca Ralston — Combined effects of climate change on European birds. Co-supervision, University of Helsinki, from 2025.
• Ronja S Saarinen — Climate-driven changes in species phenology, distribution and morphology. Co-supervision, University of Helsinki, from 2026.

• Mattias Kieboom — Migration movements as indicators of site quality. Co-supervision, Wageningen University, 2018–2019.
• Esmeralda M Villon — Bird collisions and mortality in Finland. Primary supervision, University of Helsinki, 2023–2024.
• Alice Scalzo — Long-term changes in passerine feather moult. Co-supervision, University of Mons, 2024.
• Wilma Munter — Temperature niches of bird communities across forest types and succession. Co-supervision, University of Helsinki, 2024–2025.
• Aisling Wigman — Functional diversity loss in mammals and zoonotic emergence. Host supervision, Wageningen University, 2025.

• Rongye Jin — Unmanned aerial vehicles for monitoring urban green space. Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
• Ziyan Jin, Qijia Ge and Akbar Amair — Wind-power impacts on grassland birds. Beijing Forestry University.

Visiting Researcher at the Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, following the postdoctoral appointment that ended in May 2025.

Helsinki Lab of Ornithology ↗

Fellow for the second Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

IPBES Second Global Assessment ↗

Contributing to decisions on grant applications, the annual budget and strategic aims, with attention to the needs of the ecological community.

BES Funding ↗

Associate Editor of Journal of Applied Ecology.

Online ISSN: 1365-2664
Print ISSN: 0021-8901

Journal of Applied Ecology ↗