Rate My Professor Ralf Ohlemuller

Dr. Ralf Ohlemüller is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography at the University of Otago. He holds a Diplom Biologe from the University of Bonn and a PhD from the University of Otago. His career includes serving as Research Associate in the Department of Biology at the University of York from 2004 to 2007 and RCUK Academic Fellow in the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Durham University from 2007 to 2012. Since December 2012, he has held positions as Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer at the University of Otago, where he supervises PhD students including Xiaobin Hua and Miki Nomura, as well as MSc students such as Nora Schlenker.

Ohlemüller’s research focuses on biogeography and the environmental drivers of the spatial distribution of life, with emphasis on climate change. He develops and maps ecologically relevant climate change indices at various spatial scales, studies spatial patterns of plant biodiversity and community structure in fragmented environments under past and future climatic conditions, and examines ecological variation in space and time through the interplay of genetic and phenotypic variation, seasonal processes, microclimate, and environmental gradients. His 54 publications have garnered over 15,900 citations. Key publications include “Spatial dynamics and drivers of recent changes in grass and shrub cover in submontane grassland plant communities” (Hua et al., 2024), “Do modern climatic niches distinguish extinct and extant plant genera in New Zealand?” (Schlenker et al., 2024), “Global biome patterns of the Middle and Late Pleistocene” (Huntley et al., 2023), “Differential effects of topography on the timing of the growing season in mountainous grassland ecosystems” (Hua et al., 2022, Environmental Advances), and “A greener Greenland? Climatic potential and long-term constraints on future expansions of trees and shrubs” (2013). He coordinates GEOG 459 Biogeography, GEOG 287 and GEOG 393 Plants, People and the Environment, GEOG 301 Field Research Studies, and contributes to ENVI 211 Environmental History of New Zealand, ENVI 311 Understanding Environmental Issues, GEOG 101 Physical Geography, GEOG 201 Field Research Methods, GEOG 470 A Research Topic in Geography, and GEOG 490 Dissertation.