Gerhard Pils

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Gerhard Pils (born September 21, 1954 in Freistadt ) is an Austrian botanist . Its botanical author's abbreviation is " Pils ".

Life

Gerhard Pils studied biology and chemistry at the University of Vienna from 1973 to 1981 . After completing his teaching degree in 1978, he wrote a dissertation there under Professor Friedrich Ehrendorfer on "Karyology, distribution and systematics of the Festuca genus in the Eastern Alps". He received his PhD in 1980.

He then moved to Linz and joined the federal service as an AHS teacher. In 1999 he accepted a position as a biology teacher at the Austrian St. Georgs College in Istanbul. The following six years were devoted to extensive documentation of the Turkish flora. For this he traveled to all parts of Turkey, mostly together with his wife Ingeborg. The Turkish authorities withdrew his work permit in 2005 on the grounds that he was a “threat to the security of Turkey” . Since then he has been working as a BHS teacher in Carinthia .

research

  • Floristry: Pils published numerous works on the flora of his home state Upper Austria . In addition, Pils is an expert on the flora of the Mediterranean region. In 2006 he published the most extensive photo atlas of Turkish flora to date . Most recently he published "Illustrated Flora of Albania " (2016). This is the first English-language book that contains the entire spontaneous flora of a Balkan country and depicts it almost completely in color.
  • Plant dispersal: Based on his systematic investigations, Pils also published a number of areal studies. In doing so, he expanded the approach that was customary in Central Europe to date, namely to explain the current plant distribution in the Alps mainly through past climatic fluctuations and ice ages, through mathematical simulation models based on current ecological conditions.
  • Systematics: His research focus is on the grass genus Festuca , on which he published a number of papers even after his dissertation.
  • Vegetation Science: In addition to a series of rather popular scientific papers on various habitats in Upper Austria, Pils presented an extensive and multidisciplinary work on Upper Austrian grassland in 1994.

1994–99 Pils taught as an external lecturer at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna , where he received the venia legendi for systematics and geobotany in 1995 . He also taught as an external lecturer at the University of Vienna (Institute for Geography) from 1995–99 .

Appreciations

"Illustrated Flora of Albania" was awarded the OPTIMA silver medal as the best book on phytotaxonomy of the Mediterranean region of 2016 at the international OPTIMA meeting in Athens (October 2019) [1].

Newly described plant families

Fonts (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pils, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian botanist
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Free City