Plant Ecology
2nd ed. 2019
Cover illustration: Claus Diercks, Willy Giltmann, Hamburg, Germany
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE part of Springer Nature
The registered company address is: Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
Contents
Contributors
About the Authors
(born 1937) is a plant physiologist and for more than 30 years (until 2007) chaired the Department of Plant Physiology at the University of Bayreuth. His scientific interests are in plant (eco)physiology and molecular biology, plant hormone physiology, biodiversity research, vegetation ecology and ecosystem theory. In 1979, he launched plant ecophysiological studies in tropical Africa and later on in South America as well. He was elected president of the Association of German Biologists, president of the German Botanical Society, president of the German National Committee of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), treasurer of the IUBS, and chairman of the Senate Commission for Biodiversity Research of the German Research Foundation. He served as examiner on many evaluation panels and remains a member of the editorial boards of scientific journals.
(born 1965) is an ecosystem ecologist specialised in plant and ecosystem physiology as well as the biogeochemistry of terrestrial ecosystems. She is Full Professor of Grassland Sciences at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Her major research interests lie in biospheric-atmospheric greenhouse gas exchange of forests, grasslands and croplands in response to climatic conditions and management regimes, and the process- and system-oriented understanding of biodiversity–ecosystem service relationships in grasslands. Since 2007, she has been a member of the German National Academy of Sciences. Between 2011 and 2017, she served as founding chair of the World Food System Center at ETH Zurich.
(born 1963) is a plant physiologist specialised in abiotic stress tolerance and plant nutrition. He is Full Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His main research interests are micronutrient acquisition by plants, plant interactions with toxic non-essential elements and mechanisms underlying metal hyperaccumulation. Plant homeostasis of zinc or iron and the accumulation of environmental pollutants such as cadmium or arsenic are major issues in food safety and quality, and Clemens addresses these questions in the model systemsArabidopsis thaliana , barley and rice. Metal hyperaccumulation of the metallophyteA. halleri is used as a model in his lab for the molecular understanding of the evolution of plant adaptations to extreme environments characterised by particularly harsh abiotic conditions.
(born 1936) is a biogeographer specialised in vegetation science and geo-ecology. He was Full Professor of Biogeography at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and retired in 2002. His major research fields have been in the interactions of plants in plant communities, especially in Mediterranean and Saharan regions, and applied research on the management of nature reserves in Africa and South America. He has been co-editor ofGeographical Reviews and was invited as guest professor at the University of Rabat (Morocco) and the Universidad de la Frontera in Temuco (Chile). Since 1996, he has been a member of the Academia Europae, Earth & cosmic sciences section.
(born 1968) is a plant ecologist specialised in vegetation ecology, biogeochemistry and soundscape ecology. He is Full Professor of Geobotany at the University of Freiburg, Germany. His major research fields are biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships in grassland and forest ecosystems, and he uses both experimental and observational approaches in this research. In this way, he aims to mechanistically understand the biotic control of ecological processes and how global change drivers—such as climate change, land-use change, and nitrogen deposition—interact with this control on various temporal and spatial scales.
(born 1941) is a plant ecologist and was Full Professor of Plant Ecology at the University of Bayreuth (1975–1997). From 1997 until 2009, he served as Director of the Max-Planck Institute of Biogeochemistry in Jena. His scientific interests focused initially on the ecophysiology of plants, with an emphasis on gas exchange and water and nutrient relations, which included applied research for acid rain studies. Later on, his research addressed global biogeochemistry, for example the European carbon balance and trace gas exchange in agriculture and forestry. He established the Jena Experiment, the Biotree experiment and the Deadwood experiment. Since 2004, he has managed his own forest land, and his research interests now include the understanding of interactions between plant biodiversity and land management. He was a member of the IPCC team that received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He received the German Environmental Award (Deutsche Umweltpreis ), the Bavarian State Medal in Silver, the Max Planck Research Award (Max-Planck Forschungspreis ), the Vernadzky Medal of the European Geosciences Union, the Ernst Haeckel Medal of the European Ecological Federation, and the Order of Merit, First Class, Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz Erster Klasse ).