Ingolf Kühn

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