Roland Kirschner has more than 15 years’ experience in teaching students at all levels. Through his PhD supervisor in Germany, Franz Oberwinkler, and as  “academic descendent” from Anton de Bary, the most famous German plant pathologist and mycologist of the 19th century,  three particularities are observed in teaching and research: 1) The unity of teaching and research. 2) The correlation between structure and function in organisms. 3) The connection between botany and mycology. Although there have always been reductionistic tendencies, this lineage still upholds the traditional “organismic” approach and by integrating modern methods transfers it to the next generation of scientists.

In over 100 articles in international journals (many of them with SCI) about 60 new species and over 70 new records of fungi (mainly ana- and teleomorphic Asco- and Basidiomycota) were published for Europe, Panama, Taiwan, and China. A major part of study deals with clarification of incompletely known species described by previous famous mycologists. In order to avoid increasing this burden for future generations, my work includes careful documentation beyond the actual need for mere publication. In Taiwan, over 30 type specimens of new species and ca. 60 specimens of newly recorded species from Taiwan were deposited in the National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, over 400 living strains are preserved in the culture collection of the Bioresource Collection and Research Center, Hsinchu. Additional specimens and cultures were deposited in other collections. Illustrations of ca. 50 scientifically identified fungal species were provided to the TaiEOL biodiversity database. About 200 DNA sequences of carefully identified species were deposited at GenBank.

R. Kirschner is the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal for cryptogamic botany Nova Hedwigia, Section Editor of the international journal Mycological Progress and member of the Editorial Board of further journals.  He is one of the ca. 20 members of the permanent international Nomenclature Committee for the Fungi (one of the three Asian-based members). He also serves as board member of scientific societies: Mycological Society of Taiwan (2013-present) and Taiwan Society of Microbial Ecology (2014-present).

Our main research task is detecting and identifying these fungi and to approach insights into their interactions with plants, insects and other organisms. We presently have one research focus on saprobic and plant pathogenic fungi in the understory vegetation, particularly ferns, and another one on fungi on tropical coast vegetation.  We expect to discover new species and species hitherto not known for Taiwan or East Asia as base for understanding the ecological roles of fungi in these particular habitats. In addition to field collections, we apply light and electron microscopy, cultivation of strains, DNA isolation, PCR and phylogenetic analyses.