Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems

Carsten Hobohm, Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil., is full professor at the University of Flensburg since 2006 and head of the Department of Ecology and Environmental Education (Ökologie und Umweltbildung).

Before he went to Flensburg, he worked at the universities of Bayreuth and Freiburg (1978-1985, Diploma in Biology), Hannover (doctoral research on plant communities and vegetation ecology of the waddensea island Norderney with subsidiary subject in Philosophy, 1987-1992), Lüneburg (postdoc position, 1992-2004, including postdoctoral lecturer qualification, Habilitation , in the field of Geobotany and Nature Conservation in 1997), Siegen (2005-2006, visiting professor in landscape and vegetation ecology).

During his community service and afterwards (1985-2004) he worked for a nature conservation NGO (Schutzstation Wattenmeer) in the Waddensea area on the islands Sylt and Föhr and on different ecological audit projects for the private sector.

He is interested in the relationship between nature and culture, in vegetation and landscape ecology, environmental sciences, international nature conservation policies, environmental education and environmental ethics. The nature-culture relationship can be seen as principal topic.

His research focuses on the biogeography and ecology of species compositions, diversity hotspots, rare and endemic vascular plants, their habitats and ecology in response to natural and cultural processes.

He published the first scientific book on Biodiversity - Biodiversität - in German language (2000). He edited a book on Endemism in Vascular Plants (2014; Plant and Vegetation 9) and on Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems (in general accepted in 2019 for publication in the series Environmental Challenges and Solutions , subm. 2020, publication expected in 2021 or 2022).

He and his research group are organising, updating and analysing the database onEndemic Vascular Plants in Europe (EvaplantE), the database on Plant Endemism Assessment of Red List habitats in Europe (PEARL), and a new database on hyperendemism (Hypedata). In 2016 a Red List of European terrestrial and freshwater habitats including a small contribution of the working group was published by the European Commission, Brussels (Janssen et al. 2016; fact sheets on the internet since 2017).

In 2014 and 2018 the quality of education in biology/ecology and didactics at the University of Flensburg was ranked on top in comparison with other universities in Germany (CHE ranking).

In 2020 Carsten Hobohm got the Research Award of the University of Flensburg. In the same year the whole university was ranked as one of the top five universities in Germany with respect to efficiency.