Xiongjie Deng

Understanding biodiversity and resilience of forest ecosystems using integrated remote sensing and trait-based approaches

Xiongjie is a DPhil student whose research focuses on measuring, modelling, monitoring, and forecasting spatiotemporal dynamics in forest ecosystems using remote sensing data together with in-situ measurements. He investigates how to map and predict forest biodiversity from space and how forests respond to a changing environment.

• Mapping forest resilience hotspots in South America 18 July 2025
• Satellite image analysis delivers new insight into the functional diversity of tropical forests 21 March 2025, featured by ScienceDaily
• Satellite image analysis delivers new insight into the functional diversity of tropical forests 5 March 2025, featured by ECI
• World's most productive natural forests recently discovered in West Africa 15 April 2024

Journal Articles

• Deng, X., Carvajal, D.E., Urrutia-Jalabert, R., Machida, W.S., Rosen, A., Zhang-Zheng, H., Galbraith, D., Díaz, S., Malhi, Y. and Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J. (2025) Quantifying the functional composition and potential resilience hotspots across a large latitudinal and environmental gradient in South American forests. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 142: 104704.
• Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J., Rifai, S.W., Deng, X., Ter Steege, H., Thomson, E., Corral-Rivas, J.J., Franklin Guimaraes, A., et al. (2025) Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests. Nature, 641: 129-136.
• Zhang-Zheng, H., Deng, X., Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J., Stocker, B.D., Thomson, E., Ding, R., Adu-Bredu, S. et al. (2024) Why models underestimate West African tropical forest primary productivity. Nature Communications, 15(1): 9574.
• Zhang-Zheng, H., Adu-Bredu, S., Duah-Gyamfi, A., Moore, S., Addo-Danso, S.D., Amissah, L., Valentini, R., et al. (2024) Contrasting carbon cycle along tropical forest aridity gradients in West Africa and Amazonia. Nature Communications, 15(1): 3158.
• Jefferys, K., Carvalheiro, L., Gonzalez-Chaves, A., Petersen, J., Deng, X., Machida, W., Baldock, K., et al. (2024) Plant functional traits and vegetation structure explain pollination networks at scale. Research Square.
• Chen, J., Shao, Z., Deng, A., Huang, X. and Dang, C. (2023) Vegetation as the catalyst for water circulation on global terrestrial ecosystem. Science of The Total Environment, 895: 165071.

Book Chapters

• Malhi, Y., Christmann, T., Deng, X., Zhang-Zheng, H., Moore, S. and Riutta, T. (2024) Forest Carbon Budgets and Climate Change. In, Peh, Kelvin S-H., Richard T. Corlett, and Yves Bergeron (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Forest Ecology. Routledge. pp. 589-610.

Conference Presentations

• Deng, X. (2023) Assessing functional diversity in Chile along environmental gradients from above. British Ecological Society Annual Meeting.
• Deng X., Aguirre-Gutiérrez, J. and Malhi, Y. (2023) Spatiotemporal functional traits mapping and functional diversity assessment from above. ARBOLES: A trait-based Understanding of LATAM Forest Biodiversity and Resilience.
• Huanyuan, Z. and Deng, X. (2023) Indent and comment are critical for readability and reproducibility. Poster presentation at the Institute of Computing for Climate Science at the University of Cambridge.
• Deng, X. (2022) Pantropical plant functional traits dynamics mapping and predicting by integrating radar and field data on the Google Earth Engine platform. Under Symposium 42: From traits to ecosystems: remote sensing of tropical forest structure and function under environmental change, 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation.