Marta Kolanowska

Marta Kolanowska’s field work documents tropical orchids in the biodiversity hotspots of Andean Colombia, Papua New Guinea and the Isthmus of Darien in Panama. She addresses conservation issues by using biogeographical analyses and ecological modeling that help us understand how climate change is affecting orchids and their specialized pollinators.

Kolanowska is a leading botanist focused on systematics and conservation of tropical Orchidaceae, the largest and most diverse family of flowering plants. Through her explorations of little known ecosystems, as well as her revisions of herbaria collections, she has discovered more than 370 species of orchids that were previously unknown to science.

Like biota everywhere on our planet, climate change is affecting the orchid family and its specialized pollinators, and human activities are causing forest loss in tropical latitudes where these flowering plants formerly thrived. Her work addresses some of these challenges through biogeographical and ecological modeling, community science initiatives and the establishment of a nature reserve in southern Colombia (La Palma) with local scientists and members of an indigenous tribe.