Professor Jim Fraser is collaborating with scientists from the Center for Watershed Ecology of the Life Science Institute at China’s Nanchang University to establish the first-ever survey of migratory shorebirds that winter at Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China.

Chinese scholars were interested in Fraser’s research on migrating birds and in 2012 invited him as a visiting scholar at Nanchang University and to give talks at Fudan University in Shanghai about his piping plover research. In 2013, a delegation of scientists from Nanchang and Fudan University, including the director of the Center for Watershed Ecology, visited Fraser’s research program at Virginia Tech.

Fraser and his team found good study sites during their first field expedition in January 2014. Since then, a Chinese colleague began sampling the habitats and is continuing to survey. With Fraser’s support, she will write proposals for funding to supplement the nature reserve support.

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