Research Group
Biodiversity
Our group focuses on different levels of biodiversity in mountain ranges. Alongside studying the spatiotemporal evolution and diversification of plants in the Alps and other regions both at the intraspecific and at the interspecific levels, we address the effects of climate and land use change at the level of individuals, populations, and plant communities.
Our research relies on data derived from molecular genetics and genomics, flow cytometry and morphometry as well as experimental and observational field research, population and vegetation ecology. The overarching goal is to reconstruct the origin and to understand the make-up of the high biodiversity of mountain areas.
Conducting vegetation plots for the GLORIA project at 3420 m in the Central Alps, South Tyrol.
Processing the extracted plant DNA in the laboratory
Main research topics
Intraspecific diversification (phylogeography) and microevolution (speciation processes)
Biogeography of different biomes (e.g., mountains, steppes, forests)
Systematics, taxonomy and evolution of various flowering plant groups: Astragalus, Euphorbia, Knautia, Rubus sect. Rubus
Impact and management of alien plants (neophytes)
Vegetation dynamics and monitoring of global change effects
Projects
Role of genome duplication in changing mountain landscapes, FWF, 2021–2025
Survey of the genetic diversity of endemics of the north-eastern Limestone Alps as a monitoring basis, Austrian Biodiversity Fond, 2024–2025
Cryptic evolution and diversification of Luzula sect. Luzula in the grasslands of the Eastern Alps, EUREGIO, 2022–2025
Tyrolean neophyte center, plant invasions, monitoring and management of IAS, 2021– 2023
Academic staff
Administrative and technical staff
- Cäcilia Lechner-Pagitz
- Marianne Magauer
- Barbara Pernfuß
- Daniela Pirkebner
Student employees
- Gabriel Span
Emeriti and retired staff
- Brigitta Erschbamer
- Georg Gärtner
- Eugen Rott
Research Assistants
- Philipp Kirschner
- Mar Unzeta Lloret
- Vera Margreiter
- Valentin Heimer
- Clemens Maylandt
- Špela Pungaršek
- Teresa Zeni
- Daniel Baumgartner
- Laura Bonet Pizarro
- Sarah Brach
- Tom Fischbach
- Jonas Geurden
- Sina Horsch
- Anna-Maria Mayr
- Elias Nitz
- Nina Puecher
- Adam Seyr
- Gabriel Span
- Melissa Suntinger
- Michael Thalinger
- Alexander Ulbrich
- Marlene Volz
- Felix Wetzel