Elisabeth Kalko
Elisabeth Klara Viktoria Kalko ( born April 10, 1962 in Berlin, † 26 September 2011 in Nkweseko, Hai District, Tanzania) was a German tropical scientist and ecologist. She was Director of the Institute of Experimental Ecology, University of Ulm, was part of the scientific staff of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute ( STRI ) in Panama and was also a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History ( AMNH ) in Washington, DC, USA.
Life
Elisabeth Kalko acquired in biology her diploma at the University of Tübingen to which also the promotion joined in Tübingen in 1991. She was promoted in both study periods with a scholarship from the Study Foundation of the German People. The topic of her thesis was The echo tracking and hunting behavior of the three European pipistrelle species, Pipistrellus pipistrellus ( Schreber, 1774), Pipistrellus nathusii ( Keyserling et Blasius, 1839) and Pipistrellus kuhlii ( Kuhl, 1819), in the field. From 1991 to 1993 Kalko worked as a postdoc with a NATO fellowship at the American Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, USA. From 1993 to 1997 she worked on tropical diversity in two DFG - project before it could conclude a Heisenberg fellow of the DFG her habilitation in Tübingen in 1999.
Since 1999, the scientist worked at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. She spent several stays at scientific institutes such as the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC and undertook expeditions to the Congo and field studies in several European countries. Since 2000, she was next to their activity in Panama also a professor and director of the Institute of Experimental Ecology at the University of Ulm.
Kalko belonged to the National Committee on Global Change Research ( NKGCF ) to ( 2002-2011 ) and was a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Science for life ( since 2006). From 2005 to 2011 she was elected Vice -President of the Society for Tropical Ecology ( GTÖ ) and since 2008 a member of the Senate Commission on Biodiversity of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Since 2008, she led the German section of DIVERSITAS International, since 2010 as the founding chairman of DIVERSITAS Germany eV She was editor of the internationally renowned journal of Tropical Ecology Ecotropica.
Kalko died as one of the world's leading experts on tropical ecology and bat research 26 September 2011 during the visit of one of their guided- DFG project in Tanzania.
Work
Research
Kalko led numerous research projects with a focus on how the anthropogenic impact on biodiversity, the functionality of vertebrate communities and the interface of ecology and health. In German and U.S. media Elisabeth Kalko was a sought-after expert on bats, their main object of study. Her research focused on the bio-acoustics and community ecology.
She was responsible for the network of biodiversity exploratories (DFG - project ) in Germany.