Department of Plant Biology and Ecology was founded in December 2003. It is made up of the Lab of Plant Molecular Biology, the Lab of Physiological Ecology, the Lab of Resource Botany and the Lab of Structural Botany. At present, there are five full professors, four associate professors and one lecturer. The Department is well equipped with relatively advanced teaching and research facilities.

The Department confers Ph. D. and M. Sc. degrees in botany and ecology. In the early 1980s, Nankai University was authorized to award M. Sc. degrees in botany and plant physiology. With the development of related branches, awarding master degree in ecology was also qualified in 1993. In recent years, the faculty members of the Department are working in the research areas covering plant physiology and molecular biology, gene transfer and biotechnology, resource botany, environmental botany, structural botany, physiological ecology, etc. Most of the research projects are supported by the National 973 Project, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Education and the Science and Technology Committee of Tianjin. The research is fruitful and many important research papers have been published in the national or international key journals.