Speaker: Nils Chr. Stenseth

Professor of ecology and evolution, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES),

Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo.

Host: Dr. Lei Xu, Associate Professor, Vanke School of Public Health, Tsinghua University

Time: 9:00-10:00am, May 21, 2023

Venue: 清华大学法律图书馆B105 （仅限清华校内师生）

腾讯会议 (ID: 109-553-269   Password: 054818 )

Talk Title: The ecology of plague: a disease of today which changed our history

从生态学角度看鼠疫：一种曾改变历史也正威胁当下的传染病

Abstract:

The lecture will start with a general introduction on plague, including the past historical and recent plague pandemics. The plague bacterium can primarily be found in nature, living in small mammal populations or in burrow systems. The ecology of the plague bacteria in nature is summarized. Occasionally the plague bacterium spills over to the human population. This spill over as well as the dynamics within the human population is summarized. The lecture then discusses cases of plague coming into Europe from other regions – based on studies upon ancient DNA techniques. The lecture then summarizes how the plague bacterium spreads between people – with the suggestion that the bacterium is primarily transmitted by human body fleas and lice. The lecture closes with a summary of a recent study addressing the question whether a plague reservoir has ever been in Europe.

Altogether the lecture summarizes about 25 years of work.

Biography:

尼尔斯·斯坦塞斯（Nils Chr. Stenseth）教授，博士，挪威奥斯陆大学教授。曾任挪威科学院院长（2009-2014）、欧洲科学研究理事会（ERC）委员、国际生物科学联合会（IUBS）主席（2012-2015）。当选挪威科学院院士、美国科学院院士、欧洲科学院院士、俄罗斯科学院院士、法国科学院院士、芬兰科学院院士和发展中国家科学院院士。曾荣获中国科学院“爱因斯坦讲席教授”、清华大学“荣誉教授”、北京师范大学“荣誉教授”称号。2019年，斯坦塞斯教授荣获“2019年度中华人民共和国国际科学技术合作奖”和“中国政府友谊奖”两项大奖。

斯坦塞斯教授主要从事种群生态学、全球气候变化研究，是动物生态学领域的领军人物。他将生态学思想引入并融合到进化生物学、遗传学、基因组学等学科中，模拟和解释气候和其他环境因素对种群调节的密度制约性和非密度制约性的影响, 并运用理论模型来理解疾病(特别是鼠疫)的生态进化。斯坦塞斯教授通过不断努力，打破了长期的学科间障碍, 开辟新的研究途径, 揭示了全球变化对动物种群波动、疾病爆发流行等影响机制，为生态学和进化学发展做出了卓越贡献。研究范围跨越陆地、淡水、海洋等多个生态系统。

目前，他已发表727篇SCI论文，其中37篇发表在《Nature》、《Science》期刊。据Web of Science数据，斯坦塞斯教授的论文引用高达26,799次（Google Scholar数据为40,291次），其中有5篇论文引用次数已超过400，16篇被引200多次，50篇被引100多次。 因此，斯坦塞斯教授近十年的论文被引次数，在挪威排名第一，在欧洲自然科学领域排名第五，论文的H指数（表示学术产出数量与水平）也高达77（Google Scholar的数据为100）。

Nils Chr. Stenseth professor, Ph.D., University of Oslo, Norway. He was President of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences (2009-2014), Member of the European Council for Scientific Research (ERC), and President of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS) (2012-2015). He has been elected as a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Finnish Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences for Developing Countries. In 2019, Prof. Stenseth was awarded the "2019 Chinese Academy of Sciences Einstein Chair", "Honorary Professor" by Tsinghua University, and "Honorary Professor" by Beijing Normal University. In 2019, Professor Stenseth was awarded the 2019 International Science and Technology Cooperation Award of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Government Friendship Award.

Professor Stenseth is a leading figure in the field of animal ecology, focusing on population ecology and global climate change research. He has introduced and integrated ecological ideas into evolutionary biology, genetics, genomics and other disciplines to model and explain the density-constrained and non-density-constrained effects of climate and other environmental factors on population regulation, and to apply theoretical models to understand the ecological evolution of diseases (especially plague). Through his ongoing efforts, Professor Stenseth has broken down long-standing interdisciplinary barriers and opened up new avenues of research, revealing the mechanisms by which global change affects fluctuations in animal populations and disease outbreaks and epidemics, and making remarkable contributions to the development of ecology and evolution. His research spans a wide range of ecosystems, including terrestrial, freshwater, and marine.

Currently, he has published 727 SCI papers, 37 of which were published in Nature and Science journals. According to Web of Science data, Professor Stenseth's papers have been cited up to 26,799 times (40,291 times by Google Scholar), among which 5 papers have been cited more than 400 times, 16 have been cited more than 200 times, and 50 have been cited more than 100 times. Thus, Professor Stenseth's papers have been cited first in Norway and fifth in Europe in the field of natural sciences for the last ten years, and have an H-index (indicating the number and level of academic output) of 77 (100 according to Google Scholar).