Otto Huber (ecologist)

Otto Huber (born 1944 in Bischofswiesen, Bavaria, Germany) is an Italian ecologist known for his work on the botany, phytogeography and conservation of the neotropics. His academic focus has primarily been on the non-forested biomes of the Venezuelan Guayana. Beginning in the 1970s, he led many pioneering expeditions to the inaccessible tepuis (table mountains) of the region. Huber has authored over 120 publications, including most of the first volume of Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana. As a plant collector, Huber was most active around the period 1974–1999. Huber worked closely with Julian A. Steyermark, one of his early mentors.

Huber has spent 30 uninterrupted years collecting extensively in southern Venezuela, often in previously unexplored areas, and proposing and teaching new concepts in neotropical phytogeography. Born in Germany, Huber grew up and studied in Merano, Italy, and graduated from the State University of Rome in the fields of Botany and Ecology (1971). While in Rome in 1966 he was given an offer to travel to Venezuela for a year to carry out field work in the newly created Estación Biológica de los Llanos in Calabozo (Guárico state). Here he met Prof. Volkmar Vareschi and Dr. Julian Steyermark and they became his main mentors, influential in his decision to focus on the field of botany. He then studied for a PhD in botany at the State University of Innsbruck (Austria) during which he undertook fieldwork in Venezuela, in the cloud forests at Rancho Grande in Aragua State.

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