He had authored at least 60 academic papers, written over 40 popular science articles about fish on Chinese newspapers and magazines, and been responsible for compiling and editing fish-related entries in several standard reference books (including Encyclopedia of China and Zhonghua Dadian).

At that time, the National Changbai Normal University moved from Jilin to Shenyang due to the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and taught vertebrate zoology at the school.

While blacklisted as a "rightist" and assigned to work on aquaculture-related research in the early 1960s, he discovered a salmonid fish serendipitously in the vicinity of Qinling Mountains (considered to be a glacial refugium roughly in central part of China), which is later named Brachymystax tsinlingensis Li, 1966.

Tai Hou wrote an article in the Human World Supplement of China Times, describing the reunion of two fellow countrymen and friends after nearly forty years apart.

Comparing fish species in the Yellow River in 2010–2015 and the survey results originally reported by Li in 1965 as part of his research on the book, two recent Chinese studies conclude that only about half of the native fishes in the Yellow River could still be found, due to causes such as anthropogenic environmental alterations and increased presence of introduced species over the past half-century.

Li was also the primary contributor to a volume of the Fauna Sinica series covering the orders of Atheriniformes, Cyprinodontiformes, Beloniformes, Ophidiiformes and Gadiformes, which was published posthumously in 2011.

Another volume of the Fauna Sinica series which he worked on during his last years, covering fish species in China within the orders of Beryciformes, Zeiformes, Lampriformes, Gasterosteiformes, Mugiliformes and Synbranchiformes (such as soldierfish, dory, opah, ribbonfish, stickleback, mullet, swamp eel, etc.

[17][18] Academic data and breeding practices published over the past thirty years show that their suggestions have considerable feasibility and development potential.

Since 1990s, research and experimentation have been conducted in China for remediation and utilization of alkali land through combined agriculture and aquaculture practices, with considerable success.

In recent years, aquaculture has been recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China as a successful model for the transformation and utilization of saline-alkali land.

They serve as rare historical information and baseline materials for the evaluation of the degree of effectiveness of relevant environmental and ecological protection measures.

Comparing fish species in the Yellow River in 2010–2015 and the survey results originally reported by Li in 1965[13] as part of his research on the book, two recent Chinese studies conclude that only about half of the native fishes in the Yellow River could still be found, due to anthropogenic environmental alterations and increased presence of introduced species over the past half-century.

The upper reaches of the Yellow River flow through the mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the alpine swamp grasslands and its northeastern edge.