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Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
The Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic studies vegetation at organism, population, community and ecosystem levels. Attention is paid to functioning, regeneration, and conservation of populations and ecosystems, as well as short- and long-term climate monitoring, and biomonitoring. The Institute of Botany is responsible for publishing synthetic national botanical works, contributes to important international botanical publications, holds specialised plant collections focused on protection of genetic resources, and holds or contributes to national databases. The research of the Phycology Department covers algal taxonomy, ecology and physiology. Impact of environmental factors on Cyanobacteria and algae has been investigated both in laboratory and natural habitats. Algae have been studied at T?ebon since 1960. Traditional classical taxonomy studies are now combined with molecular biology approaches into polyphasic (traditional + molecular = polyphasic) taxonomy. The Department has collected and studied algae in a wide spectrum of conditions, though mainly from extremely cold Polar Regions, and isolated them into the culture collection CCALA.
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The Phycology Department leader (since 1995) Dr Josef Elster, studies the ecology and ecophysiology of cyanobacteria and algae in extreme environments, preferentially in polar ecosystems. During 1997 to 2001 he also led the Section of Plant Ecology. He leads or participates in 15 domestic and international projects, which involve 10 researchers and 14 other people including Ph.D. students and post-doctoral scientists. Dr. Elster is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Biological Science, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice and at the Faculty of Natural Science, Masaryk University in Brno. He is a referee for the main international journals in the field of phycology (Journal of Phycology, Antarctic Science, Polar Biology, Algological Studies, etc.). He acts as project evaluator for the European Centre for Arctic Environmental Research, Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway, the New Zealand Science Foundation, the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, the Grant Agency of the Charles University in Prague, amongst others. Dr. Elster is author or co-author of 38 international papers with a total citation index > 100. He has experience in the organisation of conferences (Partner Review Meeting - The COnservation of a vital european scientific and Biotechnological Resource: microAlgae and cyanobacteria (COBRA) QLRI-CT-2001-01645 and the Working Group meeting on aquatic environments within the EEDEN Program of the ESF (Environments and ecosystem dynamics of the eurasian neogene), He was an Editor of the book “Algae and extreme environments – ecology and physiology” together with J. Seckbach, W. Vincent and O. Lhotsky. Nova Hedvigia, Germany, International Symposium “Algae and Extreme Environments – Ecology and Physiology, etc. He is member of several Czech and international science groups including Steering Committee of the Environment and Ecosystem Dynamics of the Eurasian Neogene (2000), Member of International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (2000 -), Member of the European Exo/Astrobiology Network Association (ENA) (2002 -), Member of the European Polar Consortium (2005 - ongoing).