TEE with PIE: conference time in XiShuangBanNa

From 27 June to 2 July, Nicole (me, a PhD candidate) with Jo Lyn and Joshua, two Research Assistants from the PIE lab, travelled to XiShuangBanNa (XSBN) prefecture in the Yunnan province of China for the 2026 Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC).  ATBC is an international yearly conference that focusses on tropical biology, ecosystems and conservation globally. This year, the theme was quite a mouthful: Achieving a Shared Ecological Civilization for Long-Term Resilience. The conference opened with one of the councillors of ATBC, Professor Gbadamassi Gouvide Olawole Dossa putting us Singaporeans to shame by introducing the conference in fluent, intonation-accurate Mandarin both on and off script!

On the NTU side, there was also Weng Ngai, the PI of the PIE-lab (and ex-TEE lab member), Zu from the Coupled Human and Natural Systems Lab, and Kelly from the Spatial, Conservation and Policy Studies Lab. Informally, the Singapore contingent was made up by attendees NUS, NParks, the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, and a few other Singaporeans studying overseas. There were about 38 of us in total, which made up about 3% of the entire attendee list! (~1000 attendees).

(centre): Joshua, myself, Jo Lyn at a mini insect exhibit within the conference venue.

(left) post-banquest photo with 1/2 the Singaporeans, (right) night walk photo with some of the other half.

Photo credit:  Jo Lyn Loo, Sean Yap, myself

The first leg of our adventure took us to Kunming city, where we had to take a taxi to the railway station to get the train to XSBN. After a bit of running around and fiddling with the various travel apps, we had an early breakfast, got on the train and headed towards the prefecture’s main city of Jinghong. There were a lot of timely reminders along the way that both Singapore and China have a long ways to go in disability access…

Photo credit: Jo Lyn Loo, myself

The XSBN Dai Autonomous Prefecture has a subtropical, savanna climate – humid and dry during the day risking a sunburn, and cool at night. Being on the border of Laos and Myanmar, the city had a lot of Buddhist iconography, with many peacock and elephant statues and building decorations. The conference venue (the Mekong River Jingland hotel) was next to a huge night market along the Lancang river, where you could buy exotic fruits, edible insects, tea, and all sorts of mushroom-related snacks, meals and paraphernalia.

The conference had a lot of talks on plants, birds and several mammals, with several sessions dedicated to methods, conservation issues, climate change and human-wildlife issues. I attended all four bat-related talks and three bat-related posters, as many invertebrate talks as I could (20/30?), and the other Singaporeans’ talks. My favourite talks were:

1. Tropical insects In the Anthropocene – Dr. Louise Ashton: A wonderfully-crafted overview of her past and present work in the tropics, weaving in the current El Nino issues and canopy research.

2. Enhancing species maps using citizen science data – Dr. Sreekar Rachakonda. An important reminder that sometimes it’s important to look at what’s not been seen recently to determine species extirpation and extinction rates.

3. Predatory ants exert stronger top-down control than birds and bats in a tropical forest – Dr. Akihiro Nakamura. A cool, multi-taxa canopy and on-ground experiment study on predation rates of clay and live insect larvae.

A special shoutout to our previous lab-mates Dr. Sean Yap with a very colourful and engaging presentation on urban noise and bioacoustics in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR), and Dr. Nadine Keller on plant-mycorrhizal effects on soil carbon.

(Clockwise from left): Presentations from Dr Nakamura, Dr Ashton, Nadine and Sean.  Photo credit: Robyn Gwee, myself

On the 3rd and 4th day, we finally presented! Jo Lyn and Joshua presented projects that they did as RAs. Wonderful presentations considering Jo Lyn was a first timer and this was also only Josh's second time. I had fun presenting my poster to people who came over to try and see how many green corridors their countries had, or to see how well their favourite taxa was represented. The posters were in a very warm space but mine happened to be right underneath an air-conditioning vent, so that may have helped draw the crowd (hehe).

(From left): Jo Lyn, Joshua, myself presenting. Photo credit: myself, Sean Yap.

Additionally, this conference is also the most that I’ve done so many nature-related activities! I first started with an early-morning birdwatching session on the third day, then a night walk in the middle of the conference organised by Sean. Post-conference, Jo Lyn and I visited the Bubeng canopy crane and the WangTianShu Scenic area where there was also a (creaky!) canopy bridge.

(From left): birdwatching (who's watching whom?), nightwalk fauna, Wangtianshu photos

At the end of the trip Josh went back early, while Jo Lyn and I hung out in Kunming for a dinosaur-themed day with a fellow Singaporean Dr. Marcus Chua from the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. We went to three museums in total, with the most impressive one being at the Chuxiong Lufeng World Dinosaur Valley. With over 100 skeletons, and the exhibit built on the actual dig site, I felt like I was in dinosaur heaven (and not just because everything was dead)!

(From left): the many skeletons, us at the museum, the bones left in the ground to show the dig site. Photo credit: Jo Lyn Loo, myself

It's very bittersweet as this is probably be the last conference of my PhD journey, and it was a good one to end with! I had a lot of fun learning, getting back into nature and trying all sorts of mushrooms, and connecting with old and new friends in the biodiversity community. But most of all, I am especially grateful for the company and the support of the PIE lab on this trip.