Zhi-Qiang Zhang has made outstanding contributions to taxonomy in the world. He has significantly advanced global taxonomy by founding and leading two of the largest international journals in biodiversity research: Zootaxa and Phytotaxa. Zootaxa is by far the most important journal in biodiversity discovery. These pioneering journals have greatly reduced barriers to global biodiversity description and changed the way taxonomy is communicated globally. Zhi-Qiang is a world-leading authority on the systematics and ecology of mites and has made outstanding global contributions to acarology. He has discovered and named over 150 new species of mites and wrote the first monograph on mites of greenhouses in the world, which is highly cited and has contributed to better pest control for greenhouse plants. He has also developed a series of identification keys and expert information documents for major groups of mites for the Ministry for Primary Industries. Due to the high frequency of mites existing in exported and imported produce, his work has greatly eased trade barriers and facilitated the import and export of fresh and stored produce.
