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Christian Koerner
Christian Koerner (Professor, Institute of Botany, University of
Basel)), grew up in Salzburg, Austria and got his first pair of
skis at the age of 3. He studied biology and earth sciences at the
University of Innsbruck, right in the heart of the Alps. His
doctoral thesis was on water relations of alpine dwarf shrubs (PhD
1977). As a lecturer at this University, he conducted comparative
studies in alpine plants in the Alps, the Caucasus, in Australia,
New Guinea, New Zealand and the Andes. In 1989, Christian Koerner
was appointed full Professor for Plant Sciences in Basel,
Switzerland. He conducted the first and so far the only long-term
in situ CO2-enrichment experiment with alpine vegetation. With his
team he explored the consequences of rising CO2-concentrations in
a suite of other than alpine vegetation, including the lowland
tropics (see www.unibas.ch./botschoen/koerner). Very
recently he synthesized available knowledge on mountain plant
ecology in his textbook 'Alpine Plant Life' (Springer
1999). Koerner's current research aims at a functional
understanding of treelines, high alpine grassland integrity and
the significance of forest diversity. Christian Koerner is a
member of the science steering committee of the International
Geosphere Biosphere Program, chairs the Global Mountain
Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA) of DIVERSITAS, is editor-in-chief
of the journal Oecologia, member of the editorial board of
Science and various scientific academies.
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