Yong Zhou

Biography

I received my B.A. in Ecology from Northeast Normal University (China) in 2010 and my M.S. in Ecology from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2013. In 2018, I received my Ph.D. in Ecosystem Science and Management from Texas A&M University with a dissertation focused on savanna vegetation dynamics and their influence on landscape-scale carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus biogeochemistry. After my Ph.D., I spent four years as a postdoctoral associate at Yale University, supported by a G. Evelyn Hutchinson Environmental Postdoctoral Fellowship during the final two years, where I studied how changes in fire regimes shape African savanna vegetation dynamics and ecosystem carbon storage. I was an Assistant Professor at Utah State University from 2022 to 2025 before joining UC Santa Barbara in July 2025.

Research

Our lab investigates how ecosystem processes respond to global change, with a particular focus on carbon and nutrient dynamics in fire-prone ecosystems. We are currently working on two main research themes: (1) plant–soil–microbe feedbacks in response to fire, and (2) the biogeochemistry of ecosystem engineers such as termites. Most of our current work is based in African savannas, where we integrate field experiments, observational studies, and biogeochemical analyses to understand how disturbances shape ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services.