Library Person

Karl J. Niklas

American botanist at Cornell; plant biomechanics, allometry, and the evolution of morphology.

Type
Person
Subjects
Morphogenesis Form

Karl J. Niklas (b. 1948) is a botanist at Cornell University, where he has held the Liberty Hyde Bailey professorship in Plant Biology, publishing several hundred peer-reviewed papers on how physical law and mechanics constrain plant form and growth. His 1997 book The Evolutionary Biology of Plants surveys plant morphology, biomechanics, and diversification across the fossil and living record — allometry and scaling laws applied specifically to the plant kingdom.

Works in the Library