Ingolf KühnView profile
Professor
Ingolf Kühn is a Professor of Macroecology at Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Head of the Department of Community Ecology at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Halle, Germany. He is also a member of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and holds a fellowship at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL). His research is centered on plant invasions, functional traits, and biodiversity responses to global change, with a strong methodological focus on spatial and phylogenetic modeling. His research interests span macroecology , plant invasion dynamics , urban and alpine flora , and data-driven ecological modeling . He has led major projects such as Biodiversity Meets Data (BMD) , eLTER PLUS , and AlienScenarios , and contributed to EU frameworks like EuropaBON and DAISIE . He is deeply involved in developing and managing large databases, including BiolFlor and the TRY Plant Trait Database . His recent publications focus on functional traits of invasive plants, biodiversity digital twins, and climate-driven shifts in species distributions. They reflect a strong trend toward integrating big data, machine learning, and macroecological theory to predict ecological change. Scientific Awards: Highly Cited Researcher (2014–2022) Fellow of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) He serves as Editor-in-Chief of NeoBiota and Associate Editor of Journal of Vegetation Science . His advising spans PhD students and postdocs in the GLIMPSE cohort and iDiv projects. He leads multiple long-term monitoring initiatives, including alpine glacier forefield studies in the Dachstein and Berchtesgaden regions. He is affiliated with key research teams and platforms such as: Macroecology & Vegetation Science Working Group iDiv Science Strategy Board Task Forces: sTWIST, sUMMITDiv, sCoMuCra, sREGPOOL eLTER Research Infrastructure Biodiversity Digital Twin initiative






