Karl J. Niklas

Karl J. Niklas
Born	Karl Joseph Niklas 1948 (age 76–77)
Alma mater	City College of New York (B.Sc.) University of Illinois (Ph.D., 1974)
Known for	Plant biomechanics allometry quantitative paleobotany
Scientific career
Fields	Plant biology paleobotany biomechanics
Institutions	Cornell University
Author abbrev. (botany)	Niklas

Karl Joseph Niklas (born August 23, 1948), is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor Emeritus at Cornell University. ^[1] His work integrates the physical sciences and mathematics with biology to study form, function, and evolution. Niklas has authored over 500 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, reviews, and six books, integrating biomechanics, scaling theory, and evolutionary biology. ^{[2] [3]}

Early life and education

Niklas was born in Manhattan, New York, received a B.S. in mathematics from the City College of New York in 1970, ^[4] and a M.S. in botany with a minor in plant physiology (1971) and a Ph.D. in paleobotany (1974) from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. ^[2] Niklas did his postdoctoral research as a Fulbright-Hayes Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London (1975), with Prof. William Chaloner. ^[5]

Academic career

Niklas was the Curator of Paleobotany at the New York Botanical Garden (1974–1978), while having an adjunct faculty appointment at Lehman College, CUNY. ^[6] In 1978, Niklas joined the faculty at Cornell University as an assistant professor (1978), becoming a full professor of botany (1985). ^[7] In 2000, he was appointed as a Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor and held the position until his retirement in 2019. He was an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand (2004), a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2013), and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell (2012). ^{[8] [9]}

Research

Niklas's work in biomechanics examines how physical forces such as wind and gravity shape plant form, stability, and growth. ^[10]

His book Plant Biomechanics: An Engineering Approach to Plant Form and Function (1992) applied engineering principles to plant biology and helped establish biomechanics as a distinct field of plant science. ^[11] In Plant Allometry: The Scaling of Form and Process (1994), he advanced quantitative models describing scaling relationships among biomass, organ size, and environmental factors. ^[12]

Niklas has also made significant contributions to evolutionary paleobotany by developing computational models of early land plant morphospaces simulated design spaces that linked fossil diversity patterns with fluid mechanics, structural stability, and reproductive strategies. His quantitative analysis of the plant fossil record provided methods to reconstruct diversification and extinction dynamics throughout the Phanerozoic. ^[13]

In recent decades, Niklas has explored the interface of biophysics and evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), modeling the developmental origins of complex multicellularity and investigating how genetic and physical processes interact to shape plant form. ^[14]

Honors and Recognition

Niklas has received numerous academic honors, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), ^{[2] [15]} the Alexander von Humboldt Award for Senior Scientists (1998), the Botanical Society of America (BSA) Merit Award (1996), and the BSA Centennial Medal (2006). ^[2] He was awarded the Jeanette Siron Pelton Award (2002) ^[16] and named a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow (2012). ^[17] In 2017, Dr. Mathew C. Pace named the orchid Spiranthes niklasii' in his honor.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2018), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015), ^[8] the Linnean Society of London (1995), and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2013). ^[4] He is also a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Botanical Society of America, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, American Fern Society, and other professional organizations. ^[4]

Selected works

Books

• Plant Biomechanics , 1992 ( ISBN   978-0226586311)
• Plant Allometry: The Scaling of Form and Process, 1994 ( ISBN   978-0226580814) ^[18]
• The Evolutionary Biology of Plants, 1997 ( ISBN   978-0226580838) ^[10]
• Plant Physics, 2012 (co-authored with Hanns-Christof Spatz) ( ISBN   978-0226586328)
• Plant Evolution: An Introduction to the History of Life, 2016 ( ISBN   978-0-226-34214-6)
• The Origins of Life: from Abiotic Chemistry to the first Cells. Karl J. Niklas, Thomas G. Owens, and Randy Wayne. 2025.

Selected articles

• Niklas, Karl J. (1977). "Theoretical Evolutionary Rates in Plant Groups and the Fossil Record" . Brittonia. 29 (3): 241–254. doi:10.2307/2806198. ISSN   0007-196X. JSTOR   2806198.
• Niklas, Karl J.; Brown, R. Malcolm; Santos, Richard; Vian, Brigitte (July 1978). "Ultrastructure and cytochemistry of Miocene angiosperm leaf tissues". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 75 (7): 3263–3267. doi: 10.1073/pnas.75.7.3263 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   392755 . PMID   16592545.
• Niklas, Karl J. (1981-01-16). "Simulated Wind Pollination and Airflow Around Ovules of Some Early Seed Plants" . Science. 211 (4479): 275–277. doi:10.1126/science.211.4479.275. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   17748024.
• Niklas, Karl J.; Kerchner, Vincent (1984). "Mechanical and Photosynthetic Constraints on the Evolution of Plant Shape". Paleobiology. 10 (1): 79–101. doi:10.1017/S0094837300008034. ISSN   0094-8373. JSTOR   2400502.
• Niklas, Karl J. (1988). "The Role of Phyllotatic Pattern as a "Developmental Constraint" On the Interception of Light by Leaf Surfaces" . Evolution. 42 (1): 1–16. doi:10.2307/2409111. ISSN   0014-3820. JSTOR   2409111.
• Niklas, K J (1994-07-19). "Morphological evolution through complex domains of fitness". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 91 (15): 6772–6779. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.15.6772 . PMC   44282 . PMID   8041696.
• Niklas, Karl J. (1999). "A mechanical perspective on foliage leaf form and function" . New Phytologist. 143 (1): 19–31. doi:10.1046/j.1469-8137.1999.00441.x. ISSN   1469-8137.
• Niklas, Karl J.; Spatz, Hanns-Christof (2004-11-02). "Growth and hydraulic (not mechanical) constraints govern the scaling of tree height and mass". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 101 (44): 15661–15663. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0405857101 . PMC   524850 . PMID   15505224.
• Niklas, Karl J.; Cobb, Edward D.; Niinemets, Ülo; Reich, Peter B.; Sellin, Arne; Shipley, Bill; Wright, Ian J. (2007-05-22). ""Diminishing returns" in the scaling of functional leaf traits across and within species groups". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (21): 8891–8896. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0701135104 . PMC   1885598 . PMID   17502616.

References

1. "Karl Joseph Niklas Faculty Page". Department of Plant Biology, Cornell University. 2007. Retrieved 11 February 2010.
2. "Purpose in Evolution: Participants". John Templeton Foundation. Archived from the original on 12 April 2010. Retrieved 11 February 2010.
3. "Karl J. Niklas | American Academy of Arts and Sciences". www.amacad.org. 2025-07-01. Retrieved 2025-07-19.
4. "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Retrieved June 19, 2025.
5. Crane, Peter R.; Scott, Andrew C.; Beerling, David J. (2022-08-03). "William Gilbert Chaloner. 22 November 1928—13 October 2016". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 73: 107–126. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.2022.0022 .
6. Niklas, Karl J. (January 1976). "21.—Morphological and Ontogenetic Reconstructions of Parka decipiens Fleming and Pachytheca Hooker from the Lower Old Red Sandstone, Scotland" . Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 69 (21): 483–499. doi:10.1017/S0080456800015507. ISSN   1755-6929.
7. "Karl Niklas | CALS". cals.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2025-10-02.
8. "Karl J. Niklas | American Academy of Arts and Sciences". www.amacad.org. 2025-04-28. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
9. "Karl Joseph Niklas". The Helix Center. Retrieved 2025-08-06.
10. Yee, Danny (August 1997). "The Evolutionary Biology of Plants, Karl J. Niklas". Danny Yee. Retrieved 11 February 2010.
11. Niklas, Karl J. (1992). Plant biomechanics: an engineering approach to plant form and function. Chicago, Ill.: Univ. of Chicago Press. ISBN   978-0-226-58631-1.
12. Klinkhamer, Peter G.L. (March 1995). "Plant allometry: The scaling of form and process" . Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 10 (3): 134. doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(00)89015-1.
13. Niklas, K. J. (1999-01-01). "Evolutionary walks through a land plant morphospace" . Journal of Experimental Botany. 50 (330): 39–52. doi:10.1093/jxb/50.330.39. ISSN   0022-0957.
14. Niklas, Karl J. (2014). "The evolutionary-developmental origins of multicellularity" . American Journal of Botany. 101 (1): 6–25. doi:10.3732/ajb.1300314. ISSN   1537-2197. PMID   24363320.
15. "Karl J. Niklas". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 June 2011. Retrieved 11 February 2010.
16. "Jeanette Siron Pelton Award". botany.org.
17. "Presidential Fellow Award Recipients". Office of the Dean of Faculty.
18. Klinkhamer, Peter G. L. (March 1995). "Plant allometry: The scaling of form and process : by Karl J. Niklas University of Chicago Press, 1994". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 10 (3): 134. doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(00)89015-1.
19. International Plant Names Index. Niklas.