Alexander Keller

Prof. Dr. Alexander Keller is a Professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU), based at the LMU Biocenter in Planegg-Martinsried, Germany. He leads the "Cellular and Organismic Networks" research group within the Graduate School Life Science Munich (LSM), integrating field ecology, bioinformatics, and next-generation sequencing technologies to study ecological networks.

His research centers on biodiversity dynamics within the plant-microbe-pollinator triangle, examining mutualistic interactions, microbiome compositions, and genomic-level molecular processes. Key methodologies include DNA metabarcoding, phylogenetic reconstructions, and computational workflow development. His work addresses ecosystem resilience, biodiversity loss, and conservation strategies under environmental change, with emphasis on land-use impacts, urbanization, and climate gradients across tropical and temperate ecosystems.

Recent publications (2025) demonstrate strong trends in pollination ecology, microbiome analysis, and biodiversity monitoring using advanced sequencing. His studies reveal how landscape heterogeneity affects bee-pollen networks, how host identity shapes microbiomes, and how urban bees adapt foraging strategies. Notable methodological contributions include the LEPY pipeline for morphological analysis and MetAnoDe for metabarcoding quality control, alongside extensive work on tropical forest regeneration and undescribed species cataloging.

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The "Cellular and Organismic Networks" group develops open computational pipelines and laboratory protocols for ecological data analysis. They conduct fieldwork across Ecuadorian rainforests, European grasslands, and urban environments, maintaining databases for trait analysis and sequence curation while adhering to open science principles. Current projects investigate microbiome transmission in bee-flower networks, forest succession dynamics, and the molecular basis of ecological resilience under global change.