Claus Holzapfel

e-mail: claush@post.tau.ac.il

I am a plant ecologist fascinated by the intriguing ways how species interact with each other. Within that topic I address questions spanning community ecology, evolutionary ecology and ecophysiology. The list of keywords describing my past and present work is long: disturbance, breeding systems, diversity, invasion, seed ecology, clonal-plant biology, species interaction, ... you name it. I did field research in a wide range of systems ranging from Old World and New World deserts, through Mediterranean-type ecosystems to temperate forests. I am not a foreigner to the greenhouse and the lab.

My role in GLOWA:

Since July 2001 I fill the shoes of a scientific coordinator in the "Natural Ecosystem Group" of GLOWA Jordan River at Tel Aviv University (with Marcelo Sternberg). My major task is to coordinate the multifaceted field work on our four field sites and I am actively involved in field research on topics spanning seed bank, population and community dynamics, diversity patterns and breeding systems of shrubs (see photo below).

My CV in a nutshell

Diploma (M.Sc.) 1988. University of Goettingen. Advisor: Wolfgang Schmidt. Thesis title: "Roadside vegetation along transects in the Judean Desert, Israel"

Ph.D. 1993. University of Goettingen. Advisors Wolfgang Schmidt and Avi Shmida - Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Thesis title: "The impact of human-caused disturbances on the vegetation along an ecological gradient from the Mediterranean to the desert"

Postdoctoral training with Bruce E. Mahall (University of California Santa Barbara) and

Peter Alpert (University of Massachusetts at Amherst).

A few representative papers:

Holzapfel C. & Alpert P. (2003). Root cooperation between plants of the same clone. Oecologia 134: 72-77.

Alpert P., Bone E. & Holzapfel C. (2000): Invasiveness and invasibility: the possible role of environmental stress in preventing biological invasions by plants. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 3: 52-66

Holzapfel C. & Mahall B.E. (1999): Bidirectional facilitation and interference between shrubs and annuals in the Mojave Desert. Ecology 80: 1747-1761.

Holzapfel C., Schmidt W. & Shmida A. (1993): The role of seed bank and seed rain in the recolonization of disturbed sites along an aridity gradient. Phytocoenologia 23: 561-580.

Holzapfel C., Schmidt W. & Shmida A. (1992): Effects of human-caused disturbances on the flora along a Mediterranean-desert gradient. Flora 186: 261-270.

Holzapfel C. & Schmidt W. (1990): Roadside vegetation along transects in the Judean Desert. Israel Journal of Botany 39: 263-270.