mycologist
Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and ...
ecological
Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely re ...
taxonomic
280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy
Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme of classes (a taxonomy) and the allocation ...
roles of fungal communities, particularly focusing on
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...
symbioses
Symbiosis (Ancient Greek : living with, companionship < : together; and ''bíōsis'': living) is any type of a close and long-term
taxon
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...
names authored. The genus '' Ramboldia'', circumscribed in 1994 by
Gintaras Kantvilas
Gintaras Kantvilas (born 1956) is an Australian lichenologist, who earned his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Tasmania with a thesis entitled ''Studies on Tasmanian rainforest lichens''. He has authored over 432 species names, and 167 gene ...
and
John Alan Elix
John Alan (Jack) Elix (born 1941) emeritus professor in chemistry at the Australian National University, is an organic chemist who has contributed in many fields: lichenology, lichen chemotaxonomy, plant physiology and biodiversity and natural ...
, was named in his honor.
Rambold is the author of Bibliotheca Lichenologica Volumes 34 (1989) and 48 (1992), co-written with Dagmar Triebel, and has written or co-written more than 100 papers on mycology,
lichenology
Lichenology is the branch of mycology that studies the lichens, symbiotic organisms made up of an intimate symbiotic association of a microscopic alga (or a cyanobacterium) with a Hypha, filamentous fungus. Lichens are chiefly characterized by th ...
, and ecoinformatics. He is the Section Editor for ''
Mycological Progress
''Mycological Progress'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the study of fungi including lichens. It is published by Springer Science+Business Media on behalf of the German Mycological Society. Its editor in chief is Marco Thines.
Hi ...
'' and ''
MycoKeys
''MycoKeys'' is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering mycology. It was established in 2011 by Pensoft Publishers. The editor-in-chief is H. Thorsten Lumbsch.
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed ...
''.
Early life and education
Rambold pursued an academic career in biology, focusing on taxonomy and biological informatics, earning his Diploma in Biology from
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...
(LMU Munich) in 1983, followed by his PhD in
Systematic Botany
''Systematic Botany'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the study of systematic botany. It is published quarterly by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2010 i ...
in 1989. In 1993, he received his Habilitation in Systematic Botany, extending his research into fungal systematics and ecology.
Career
Rambold's PhD thesis on Australian lichens laid the foundation for his contributions to taxonomy and ecology. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with scientists, including J.A. Elix, G. Kantvilas,
Thomas Hawkes Nash III
Thomas Hawkes Nash III (born November 13, 1945) is an American lichenologist. His research is about the biology and ecology of lichens, and the effects of air pollution on plants and lichens. He is known as an authority on the family Parmelia ...
, and Thorsten H. Lumbsch.
Rambold began his academic career as a research associate at the
Botanische Staatssammlung München
The Botanische Staatssammlung München is a notable herbarium and scientific center maintained by thStaatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns Its building is located within the Botanischer Garten München-Nymphenburg area at Menzinge ...
from 1984 to 1989, and continued in this role while working at LMU Munich from 1990 to 1995. Between 1995 and 1998, he held a Heisenberg Fellowship at LMU Munich. From 1999 to 2022, he served as a University Professor for Mycology at the University of Bayreuth, during which time he was dean of study affairs from 2006 to 2009 and head of the Central Laboratory for DNA Analytics and Ecoinformatics from 2006 to 2015.
In addition, he held an appointment as the head of the Department of Mycology there and continued his work at the ITCER as an emeritus in 2022.
Research contributions
Lichenized and non-lichenized fungi
Rambold's career began with a focus on lichenized fungi, examining their taxonomy, morphology, and ecological roles. His early research on Australian lichens resulted in his PhD thesis, "A Monograph of the Saxicolous Lecideoid Lichens of Australia (excl. Tasmania)," completed in 1989 under
Hannes Hertel
Hannes Hertel is a German lichenologist and taxonomist and was Director of the State Herbarium in Munich, Germany 1992–2004. His specialist areas are the fungi and lichens.
Early life and education
Hannes Hertel was born in 1939. His doctorat ...
. Additionally, his 1992 publication on Inter-lecanoralean associations has contributed to the concept of lichens as multi-biont systems, supporting the broader view of lichens as ecological communities with diverse interactions.
Throughout his career, Rambold has described multiple new species, adding to the understanding of lichen diversity and the relationships that define lichenized fungi. From 1982 to 2006, he primarily gathered both lichenized and non-lichenized, including
extremophilic
An extremophile () is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e., environments with conditions approaching or stretching the limits of what known life can adapt to, such as extreme temperature, pres ...
ascomycetes
Ascomycota is a phylum of the kingdom Fungi that, together with the Basidiomycota, forms the subkingdom Dikarya. Its members are commonly known as the sac fungi or ascomycetes. It is the largest phylum of Fungi, with over 64,000 species. The de ...
in regions such as
Central Europe
Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...
, the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...
, Australia, Southern Africa, and the United States (specifically Arizona). His research on lichen metabolites has also shown how these compounds influence the global distribution of lichens, affecting their ecological adaptability and roles.
Fungal communities and mycobiomes
Building on his early taxonomic work, Rambold expanded his studies to fungal communities or
mycobiome
The mycobiome, mycobiota, or fungal microbiome, is the fungal community in and on an organism.
The word “mycobiome” comes from the ancient Greek μύκης (mukēs), meaning "fungus" with the suffix “biome” derived from the Greek βίο ...
s, exploring fungi associated with plants, invertebrates, soil, and microplastics. His research has highlighted the role of
microplastics
Microplastics are "synthetic solid particles or polymeric matrices, with regular or irregular shape and with size ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm, of either primary or secondary manufacturing origin, which are insoluble in water." Microplastics a ...
in accumulating fungal pathogens and the ways in which fungal communities colonize these synthetic substrates, which have been featured in ''
Phys.org
Phys.org is an online science, research and technology news aggregator which re-publishes press releases and stories from news agencies (a business model known as churnalism). In 2012, PhysOrg.com was changed to Phys.org. , Phys.org was posting ...
'' and ''SciDev.Net''. With his collaborators, he showed how polymer properties of microplastics shape microbial community assembly and succession, offering insights into how environmental pollutants influence ecosystem dynamics.
Contributions to biological informatics
Rambold has made contributions to biological informatics as well, co-founding the Diversity Workbench with Triebel and Gregor Hagedorn. He was involved in a collaborative project that led to the launch of DiversityNaviKey (DNK), a diagnostic tool for biology and related sciences built on the Diversity Workbench database, enabling interactive identification of organisms and other research entities based on predefined properties. Together with Reinhard Agerer, he also developed DEEMY, a resource for studying mycorrhizal fungi. Furthermore, he is the lead editor of the LIAS (Lichen Information System) which provides an accessible resource for lichenology, with periodic updates reflecting new data and insights.
Selected publications
*Rambold, G., Bensch, K., Kirk, P. M., Yao, Y.-J., Robert, V., Triebel, D. (2018). Proposal to recommend the use of an identifier as an alternative to the citation of the authors of fungal names. IMA Fungus, 9(1), i–vii.
*Peršoh, D., Stolle, N., Brachmann, A., Begerow, D., Rambold, G. (2018). Fungal guilds are evenly distributed along a vertical spruce forest soil profile while individual fungi show pronounced niche partitioning. Mycological Progress, 17(8), 925–939. doi:10.1007/s11557-018-1405-6
*Gkoutselis, G. M., Rohrbach, S., Harjes, J., Obst, M., Brachmann, A., Horn, M., Rambold, G. (2021). Microplastics accumulate fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems. Scientific Reports. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-92405-7
*Schweiger, A., Ullmann, M., Nürk, N. M., Triebel, D., Schobert, R., Rambold, G. (2021). Chemical properties of key metabolites determine the global distribution of lichens. Ecology Letters, 25, 416–426. doi:10.1111/ele.13930
*Triebel, D., Grunz, A., Seifert, S., Link, A., Rambold, G. (2021). DiversityNaviKey, a Progressive Web Application for interactive diagnosis and identification. Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), Gesellschaft für Informatik, 517–538. doi:10.18420/informatik2021-040
*Flessa, F., Harjes, J., Cáceres, M., Rambold, G. (2021). Comparative analyses of sooty mould communities from Brazil and Central Europe. Mycological Progress, 20, 869–887. doi:10.1007/s11557-021-01700-0
*Krasylenko, Y., Kinge, T. R., Sosnovsky, Y., Atamas, N., Tofel, K. H., Horielov, O., Rambold, G. (2022). Consuming and consumed: Biotic interactions of African mistletoes across different trophic levels. Biotropica, 54(4), 1103–1119. doi:10.1111/btp.13130