About
Claus Bässler has held the Chair of Fungal Ecology at the University of Bayreuth since 2023. Before that, he was Professor of Conservation Biology at Goethe University Frankfurt (2020–2023) and Deputy Head of the Department of Research and Conservation at Bavarian Forest National Park. He holds a BSc in Forest Management from Weihenstephan University of Applied Sciences (1997), an MSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of Rostock (2004), and a PhD in Ecology from TU Berlin (2008). In 2019 he completed his Habilitation in Forest Ecology and Biodiversity at the Technical University of Munich.
His research looks at how fungal diversity arises and is maintained, and how it responds to global change. He focuses on land use, climate change and pollution as major drivers, and he works across spatial scales, from individual substrates and local communities to landscapes and continents. Forests are the main study system, but his work also includes grasslands and other open habitats.
Methodologically, he combines controlled laboratory experiments, field experiments under real-world conditions and large-scale survey and monitoring data. He draws on functional traits and phylogenetic information to better understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that structure fungal communities. A central theme is how the different facets of fungal diversity (taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic) are linked to key ecosystem processes, especially the decomposition of organic matter and nutrient cycling. The overall aim is to improve our understanding of fungi as a fundamental but often overlooked part of biodiversity, and to inform conservation and sustainable land management.
Courses
- Forest Ecosystem Ecology