sites, include determination of the nutritional values of various grass species, modeling of Stipa grassland, analysis of nitrogen cycling in Stipa pasture, comparison of grazing pressure in different areas, and identification of an optimal rotational grazing system. A summary report of this work is scheduled for publication in 1991, under the editorship of Professor Zhang Zutong.

Inner Mongolia University (IMU), which was founded in 1957, has 1000 faculty and more tha 4000 students—graduates and undergraduates—in 13 departments. The Natural Resources Institute (NRI), a graduate and research unit, was established by Professor Li Bo, now director of the CAAS Grassland Research Institute, who remains a member of the IMU faculty. As in similar cases, the dual role of a senior professor helps ensure close cooperation between otherwise separate institutions. The current leadership of the NRI includes Professors Liu Zhongling, director, and Yong Shipeng, deputy director, both prominent figures in national grassland affairs. The university publishes its own University of Inner Mongolia Journal [Neimenggu daxue xuebao], which includes articles on grassland science.

Each year, approximately 20 scholars and graduate students from Inner Mongolia University conduct field research at the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station in Xilingele (see below). Some prominent IMU scientists and the research they have published on the basis of work at this site include: Liu Zhongling, studies of productivity, grassland improvement, and artificial grasslands involving Aneurolepidium, and the effects of burning on grassland productivity and succession; Yang Zhi, community structure of Aneurolepidium; Zhong Yankai, fodder cutting at different frequencies and seasons; Song Bingyu, water relations and evapotranspiration; Liao Yangnan, soil microbiology; Chen Min, creation of artificial grasslands by irrigation, fertilization, and seeding; and Liu Yongjian, zoo-ecology of worms and insects. Results of this work appear in Caoyuan shengtai xitong yanjiu [Research on Grassland Ecosystem] (3 volumes, in Chinese) and are summarized in Reports from the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station of Academia Sinica (1979–1988) (in English), both published by the Science Press in Beijing.