Ladislav Mucina

Professor Ladislav Mucina with his Vegetation Map of South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland.

Ladislav Mucina is an influential vegetation scientist and Professor of Environmental and Aquatic Science at the Curtin University of Technology in Australia. He was born on 28 May 1956 in Piešťany, Slovakia.

Ladislav Mucina received his education in Slovakia and was awarded scientific degrees and teaching qualifications in botany, vegetation science, plant ecology and plant taxonomy at the Comenius University and Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava in Slovakia, the University of Vienna in Austria and the Technical University Berlin in Germany. He completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and later served as visiting fellow and professor in Trieste, Camerino, Perugia, and Rome, all in Italy, Uppsala in Sweden, Brno in the Czech Republic, Perth in Australia and Pretoria and Stellenbosch, both in South Africa. In Slovakia, Professor Mucina was associated with the Slovak Academy of Sciences and later, after immigrating to Austria, he served at the University of Vienna. He has also served at the Kuwait University in Kuwait, and the University of North and the University of the Free State, both in South Africa.

Ladislav Mucina's research includes vegetation surveys, theoretical vegetation science, numerical methods and data-banking in plant ecology, biogeography, population ecology, evolutionary biology and plant taxonomy. His recent research focuses include community assembly rules and use of plant functional types in community ecology, with a particular focus on fynbos and semi-desert regions. Ladislav Mucina has participated in numerous important scientific projects including the vegetation survey of Austria, studies in vegetation patterning and population ecology of Central European dry grasslands, and syntaxonomic calibration of the EUNIS habitat directive of the European Union. He is the co-founder and ex-chairman of the European Vegetation Survey (a working group of the International Association for Vegetation Science), co-founder the National Vegetation Database in South Africa, and Scientific Coordinator of the South African National Biodiversity Institute's Vegetation Map of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland Project. Ladislav Mucina is the author or co-author of 19 books and symposium volumes, and 136 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.

Ladislav Mucina has been credited with the discovery of over twenty new species of "papierblom", all members of the Limonium genus.

Since 1994, Ladislav Mucina has served as Vice-president of the International Association for Vegetation Sciences and is a founding member and former Editor of the Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science.

Media links

• Botany professor steers the world's vegetation science learned society Matie News. South Africa.
• Slovak botanist helps to survey South Africa's plant riches Matie News. South Africa.