The Digital Ecosystem Group discovered and precisely measured the Tibetan cypress, the tallest tree in Asia (102.3 m) and the second tallest tree species in the world. The team also counted the number of trees in China and mapped their distribution across the country. These findings have been featured in a series of high-profile international media outlets, including Live Science, Global Times, China Daily, and others.

On August 12, 2025, the Digital Ecosystem Group was featured in a key news report on CCTV titled “Perceiving Ecological Change,” which highlighted China’s leadership as the world’s fastest and largest contributor to global greening. The full report is available at: https://tv.cctv.com/2025/08/12/VIDEFOvO4gjETKSYyti7T0IG250812.shtml. The coverage focused on the group’s field investigation of giant tree communities in the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon, Xizang, using LiDAR technology.

On August 9, 2025, Prof. Qinghua Guo was invited to CCTV’s renowned program “Voice” (开讲啦), where he shared his team’s long-standing research in forest ecology and remote sensing technology. The full interview is available at http://tv.cctv.com/2025/08/09/VIDEr20Wl6okBovl4DYMDEYl250809.shtml.
During the program, Prof. Guo detailed team’s work on developing China’s first high-resolution tree density distribution map and exploring the Asia’s tallest trees. By combining professional expertise with vivid storytelling, he made ecological science accessible to the public.

On February 28, 2025, the research findings from the Digital Ecosystem Group were featured in BBC Wildlife (Discover Wildlife), with the full report available at https://www.discoverwildlife.com/plant-facts/trees/how-many-trees-are-there-in-china. This pioneering study, published in Science Bulletin, delivers the most detailed assessment of tree abundance and spatial distribution across China to date, achieved by integrating over 400 terabytes of data from 76,000 forest plots with environmental factors and advanced machine-learning algorithms.