About
Climate change is reshaping ecosystems, and organisms with short generation times, such as microbes and insects, are often among the first to respond. Their rapid responses can amplify the effects of climate change, contributing to emerging diseases, pest outbreaks and biodiversity loss.
My research examines how microbes and insects respond to climate change and how these responses affect ecosystems and health. Combining field observations, experiments and large-scale ecological data, I study the biogeography of plant-associated microbiomes, climate-driven changes in forest insects and pathogens, and environmental drivers of infectious disease outbreaks.
I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Davies Lab at the Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia.
Interests
- Plant-associated microbes
- Community assembly
- Climate change impacts
- Macroecology and biogeography
- Disease and pests
Education
PhD in Biology, 2019 - 2023
Université du Québec à Montréal
MSc in Ecology, 2015 - 2018
Sun Yat-Sen University
BSc in Biology, 2011 - 2015
Sun Yat-Sen University
Research
Forest insects and pathogens pose major threats to forest health, yet their responses to climate change vary across regions, host trees and pest groups. Using incidence records from more than one million trees across North America, I develop hierarchical models that capture nonlinear responses to warming and drought. This work reveals increasing pest risks across much of North America, particularly at high latitudes, with consequences for biodiversity and forest health.
Plants host diverse microbial communities whose composition and functions vary across environments and host species. My research combines large-scale surveys, experiments and species distribution models to examine how climate, host identity and dispersal shape the diversity and biogeography of plant-associated microbiomes. I also investigate the evolution of host specificity and how climate-driven shifts in host distributions may alter microbial ranges.
Insects and microbes can strongly influence plant performance, abundance and coexistence, yet their effects vary among plant species and ecological contexts. Through field surveys and experiments, I examine how herbivory and microbial interactions change across gradients of host density and plant diversity. This work asks when these interactions promote or constrain plant diversity and how they ultimately shape species distributions.
Environmental DNA metabarcoding has transformed biodiversity assessment, but most analyses compress sequence data into taxonomic or operational units that can be difficult to compare across studies. I am developing taxonomy-free, sequence-informed approaches that retain molecular variation through sequence distances, DNA image representations and language-model embeddings. These approaches create new opportunities for biodiversity monitoring, cross-study synthesis and ecological prediction.
Human, animal and environmental health are deeply interconnected, yet these relationships have rarely been quantified globally. Integrating records of more than 14,000 human outbreaks and three million domestic animal disease events across 153 countries, I examine associations among human outbreaks, animal disease and environmental change. Environmental factors, including tree-cover loss, urban expansion and temperature anomalies, were stronger predictors of human outbreaks than animal disease burden, with these associations varying across socioeconomic and healthcare contexts.
First-author Publications
See all publications on google scholar.
(2026).
Spatially explicit forecasts of tree insect and disease incidence across North American forests under future climate scenarios.
Nature Ecology & Evolution (2026).
(2026).
Plant diversity effects on productivity are shaped by the interaction between above- and belowground plant-associated microbiota.
Plant and Soil 518 (2), 2053-2063.
(2025).
Using eDNA to assess freshwater bacterial diversity along a forest–non‐forest gradient in the Afrotropics.
Environmental DNA 7 (4), e70136.
(2025).
Modelling the distribution of plant-associated microbes with species distribution models.
Journal of Ecology 113 (6), 1434-1450.
(2024).
Host specificity of plant‐associated bacteria is negatively associated with genome size and host abundance along a latitudinal gradient.
Ecology Letters, 27, e14447.
(2024).
Deep learning- and image processing-based methods for automatic estimation of leaf herbivore damage.
Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 15, 732–743.
(2023).
Diversity and biogeography of plant phyllosphere bacteria are governed by latitude-dependent mechanisms.
New Phytologist, 240: 1534-1547.
(2022).
Interplay between the Lung Microbiome, Pulmonary Immunity and Viral Reservoirs in People Living with HIV under Antiretroviral Therapy.
Viruses, 14(11), 2395.
(2019).
Effects of host phylogeny, habitat and spatial proximity on host specificity and diversity of pathogenic and mycorrhizal fungi in a subtropical forest.
New Phytologist, 223 (462-474).
Contributions
Contact
- zihui.wang@botany.ubc.ca
- 2212 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
- DM Me