Dr. Andrew M. Greller

Andrew Greller, a native New Yorker, received the Ph.D. from Columbia University, in 1967. He is Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York (CUNY). Throughout his 30-year career at Queens College, he taught numerous college and university-level courses on botany, ecology and bioclimatology. He continues to be accredited to the graduate program in Biology at CUNY. He is a Research Associate of the New York Botanical Garden and, formerly, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He is a member of or on the boards of several botanical and educational NGO’s. He leads field trips and presents lectures on a wide range of botanical and ecological topics.

He won National Science Foundation (NSF) awards to participate in ecological research at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (1970-72, INSTAAR), University of Colorado. He took a sabbatical leave in 1974 at the University of California—Davis, where he audited courses by Barbour, Major, Webster and Axelrod, in the Botany Department. Working under the great paleobotanist, Daniel I. Axelrod, he studied Florida climate, vegetation, and paleontology. He then developed vegetation-climate analyses of the Deciduous Forest region, eastern Mexico, all of eastern North America, and most recently, comparisons across the Northern Hemisphere. He published results in leading scientific journals. He reviewed natural vegetation of North and Central America for a book edited by D.Lentz on Pre-Columbian life of the Americans, published by Columbia University Press. Further, he presented a paper to the XII International Association of Vegetation Scientists conference, in Ensenada, Mexico, on the “Bioclimatology of Evergreen Sclerophyll Woodlands.” That is the zonal type of vegetation for Mediterranean Basin and climatically similar areas of the world.

In 1980, for his second sabbatical leave, he won a Fulbright Senior Lectureship and spent nearly a year in Sri Lanka, and later in south India, where he undertook research on composition, bioclimatology, and leaf-size analyses of tropical forests. He made important contributions to rainforest ecology in a number of publications, including one now In Press.

He has traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world, gaining in-depth knowledge of the biology of Caribbean region, Mexico, Galapagos Islands, the Mediterranean Basin, eastern and southern Africa and Madagascar, Sri Lanka and India, Thailand, and Japan; Australia and New Zealand. He voyaged around Cape Horn, studying Valdivian and Magellanic rainforests, the pampas and the steppes of Patagonia. In the summer of 2008 he visited Alaska and Suriname; in the fall New England and the Canadian Maritime Provinces. In the winters of 2009 and 2011, he visited Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, St. Maarten, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, Bonaire and Aruba. And in spring 2010, he toured the Baja California Peninsula, from Ensenada to los Cabos, with a group of vegetation scientists. Trips in Spring/Summer 2011 and 2012 included Danube River capitols; and trips to Romania, Estonia, New Caledonia and Fiji for native flora. In 2013, he visited Baltic capitols in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia. For 2014, he is planning trips to Hawaii, Scotland and northern Italy.

Here is a nomograph of the climate of exotic trees Around Lake Como, Italy. Click on the image for a larger (2450 x 3500 px) version, which will open in a new window.

• Andrew Greller’s CV
• Available lectures

Selected recent publications:

2001   Greller, A.M. and Clemants, S.E.  Flora of the Southern Portion of West Hills Park, Suffolk County, New York, with considerations of provenance of some long-distance disjuncts.  Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 128 (1): 76-89.

2003   Greller, A.M.  A review of the temperate broad-leaved evergreen forest zone of southeastern North America: floristic affinities and arborescent vegetation types.  The Botanical Review 69 (3): 269-299.

2004   Levine, M.E. and Greller, A.M.  Ecological and floristic analyses of vascular plants along a gradient on disturbed serpentinite on opposing slopes in Staten Island, NY.   J. Torrey Botan. Soc. 131(1): 69-92.

2005   Greller, A.M., G.E. Lotowycz, G. Moore, E. Lamont, H. Binger, B. Connolly, V. Dankel, J. Hoar, C. Johnston, A. Mangiacapre, J. Schmidt, L. Zimmerman, Vincent Luisi, Mary Laura Lamont, Steven E. Clemants.  Vascular flora of Caumsett State Historic Park, Lloyd Neck, Long Island, New York, with notes on the vegetation.  J. Torrey Botanical Society 132(1): 149-168.

2006   Greller, A.M.,. Dankel,V. and Locke, D.L. Habitat observations of Geum vernum in Kings Point Park, Long Island, and a discussion of the species’ potential invasiveness in New York State.  Urban Habitats (Rutgers University, N.J, on-line.) 4(1): 133-136.

2007. Greller, A.M. New identifications for three plant fossils from the Upper Cretaceous of Lloyd Neck, Long Island.  American Paleontologist 15(3): 36-37; 39.

2008   Greller, A.M., Conolly, B., Blanchard, O. and Kelly, R..  Vascular flora of Caumsett State Historic Park, Lloyd Neck, Long Island, New York: Corrections and Additions. J. Torrey Bot. Soc. 135(1): 147-148.

2009   Greller, A.M. and Barringer, K.  Vascular flora of Caumsett State Historic Park, Lloyd Neck, Long Island, New York: Corrections and additions-II.  Journ. Torrey Botan.Society 136(2): 284-285.

2011.  Greller, A.M., Lindberg, A.J., Levine, M.E. and Lindberg, L.A.  Magnolia acuminata, M.  macrophylla and M. tripetala in oak-dominated forests on the North Shore of Long Island, New York.  Journ.Torrey Botan.Society 138(2): 223-236.

2013.  Greller, A.M. Climate and regional composition of deciduous forest in eastern North America and comparisons with some Asian forests.  Botanica Pacifica  (Vladivostok, Russia) 2(1): 3-18.   (PDF)